Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note
Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note - meaning Summary
Counting Absence and Loss
The poem sketches a steady, intimate descent into despair through spare domestic images. Everyday scenes — the ground swallowing the speaker, the wind’s music, running for a bus — become signs of numbness. Repeatedly counting stars and then the holes they leave signals emptiness and mounting isolation. The final moment, the speaker spying his daughter praying into her hands, suggests private grief extending to family and the speaker’s anxious, watchful love.
Read Complete AnalysesLately, I've become accustomed to the way The ground opens up and envelopes me Each time I go out to walk the dog. Or the broad edged silly music the wind Makes when I run for a bus... Things have come to that. And now, each night I count the stars. And each night I get the same number. And when they will not come to be counted, I count the holes they leave. Nobody sings anymore. And then last night I tiptoed up To my daughter's room and heard her Talking to someone, and when I opened The door, there was no one there... Only she on her knees, peeking into Her own clasped hands
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