Poetry often has a way of expressing thoughts and feelings that are considered inexpressible in English or any other actual language. It does this by using a variety of tools and literary devices that enable the author to make a bid for the reader’s (or listener’s) attention and emotional involvement. By moving directly toward the emotion of an idea, and focusing attention on various ways in which that emotion might be expressed, poets such as Alicia Ostricker are capable of quickly involving their readers in the action of a poem and beginning to establish a reaction from their audience. Alicia Ostricker’s poem “First Love” refers to the loss of a first love by a young daughter living in the home. The heartbreak of the daughter is almost palpable as the mother discusses the various ways in which she wishes she could both take away the pain and enable her daughter to grow naturally into the beautiful woman she will be. This is true whether one is a mother, a daughter, a sister or even a father, brother or uncle. Within this short, 22-line poem, Ostricker employs tools such as metaphor and simile with rich imagery to paint emotional pictures for her audience that draw on their more aesthetic and reverent natures to illustrate how the loss of a first love by a young daughter affects not only the child, but the parent as well.
The theme of the poem is obviously the suffering of the mother after the daughter has broken up with the first boyfriend she held strong feelings for. This is made clear in the first and second stanzas as the mother/speaker compares this loss with a religious experience. The metaphor is established by proximity and similarity of language: “When the child begins to suffer, the mother / finds in her mouth those burning coals / you can neither spit out nor swallow – / It tells you this in Zen” (1-4). The image thus brought immediately forward is one of extreme pain and powerlessness. There is perhaps no more sensitive place in the body than the mouth and everyone has experienced what it is like to have something too hot placed within it.
The concept that this is something that must stay in place despite the pain is therefore something everyone can relate to. The speaker then takes this emotional and tactile impression one step further into the realm of the religious by associating the idea with Zen and metaphysics: “you’re illuminated when / the coals dissolve and your mouth is cool” (5-6). Through this comparison, the child’s suffering is considered to be a lesson in Zen in a way that makes little difference to the actual religious beliefs of the individual audience member experiencing the poem. Whether they are capable of accepting the idea of Zen or any other religion does not detract from the very physical and emotional sensations that accompany the images that the poet has placed in their minds with the repeated reference to the burning coals.
This heavy start to the poem is given a bit of levity as the speaker moves on to create a simile to convey the atmosphere of the home after the break-up: “The child’s lost boyfriend permeates the home / like hyacinth perfume” (7-8). Hyacinths are flowers that have a very heavy perfume that can quickly fill an area with their fragrance and are often sought for particularly that purpose. In this respect, the comparison is very appropriate as one considers the nearly material atmosphere that often surrounds a young girl in this type of situation. Her gloom and depression would be felt by everyone in the household as she struggles to understand and accept the destruction of something as beautiful as her first love. As the poet says, “nothing can escape it, it is too much” (9). However, the hyacinth is also a flower that is commonly associated with rebirth and regeneration; particularly because of the way in which it contains several blossoms on a single stalk. In using this flower as her first symbol of the daughter’s pain, the poet is again beginning to suggest that while this experience is painful and pervasive, it is also the necessary step before moving into the next plane of existence.
The fourth stanza continues the use of simile to suggest the pain of a lost love as something all-pervasive and ever-lasting, but the imagery again suggests something that is not necessarily as bad as it might seem. The forsythia mentioned here is a flower that only blooms in the early spring but is otherwise known for its durability and resiliency. The short duration of the fragile flower is an appropriate comparison for the often fast and furious length of a first love, yet the durability of the plant on which the flower grows provides a hint that the loss of these early blooms will not necessarily reduce the lifespan of the girl or deprive the mother of her future joy. The amputee survivor is another example of an instance in which something precious is lost, never to be returned again, but at the benefit of keeping something still more precious alive and well. “Whatever doesn’t suffer isn’t alive” (13) the poet claims at the beginning of the fifth stanza, reinforcing these ideas that the suffering is part of the natural growing process and is necessary to give birth to the next most wonderful thing.
Thus, the poet’s movement into the metaphor of the sculptor is seen as entirely appropriate. This comparison is again established through proximity: “Nevertheless you imagine / rinsing all grief from the child’s tender face / the way a sculptor might peel the damp dropcloths / off the clay figure she’s been working on” (15-18). This concept may seem strange if it were presented alone as very few people consider wet clay as a finished product and rarely consider the damage that might be inflicted upon it during creation. Instead, any damage inflicted is considered to be merely part of the process. In this way, the poet again reinforces the idea that what the family is experiencing, particularly the grief of the mother, is a natural part of the process of growing up for her young daughter and there is nothing that can be done but to pick up the pieces and move forward.
This motion is brought into play in the final stanza as the author continues developing her sculptor metaphor: “So she can add fresh clay, play / with some details, pat it, bring it closer / to completion” (19-21). The idea that fresh clay may still need to be added continues to develop the idea that the girl is yet unfinished as well as the concept that more damage will need to be done in the form of added material before the final image takes shape. Yet, in this damage, the suggestion that it is done by the loving hands of the sculptor suggest that this damage is not done without design, without purpose or without need. While the daughter is already considered to be a good and beautiful thing within the mind of the mother and of the creator, this final metaphor illustrates how this tempering by outside forces is necessary to bring out these inner qualities of the girl to the forefront of public attention.
Throughout the poem, metaphor and simile are used to suggest both the extreme damage and heartache caused to both the child and the mother at the loss of a first love, but also the necessity of this heartache in order to bring the child into full and beautiful adulthood. By comparing the loss of the first love to various physical sensations such as the feel of burning coals in the mouth or the smell of a particularly pungent flower, the author is able to draw upon common experience and emotional reaction to such experience to help inform the poem. At the same time, these comparisons also serve to highlight the main idea that suffering is necessary for ultimate growth and development. As she states outright, “Whatever doesn’t suffer isn’t alive” (13).
While something precious and sweet is undeniably lost in the process, something that is so palpably missing that the entire house must feel its passing, something perhaps more wonderful still may come to take its place, as in the sculpture that the artist continues to work on until the beauty they see within is finally able to emerge to be viewed from without. As has also been illustrated throughout this discussion into the various comparisons made by the poet, the use of symbolism is also important to an understanding of the poem. The reference to Zen helps to inform the reader about the theme of rebirth through suffering while the images of the hyacinth, the forsythia, the amputee and the sculptor all reinforce the concepts of rebirth, survival, and development through wrenching change. While a surface glance at the poem might suggest little more than a lamentation regarding the pain and suffering brought into the mother’s breast as she watches her daughter suffer through the pain of lost love, a deeper investigation reveals the metaphysical stance taken by the mother through her greater wisdom toward such tragedy. While she mourns the loss of her child’s innocence and trustfulness, she wisely embraces the changes to come as the child continues to develop into a mature woman.
Works Cited
Ostricker, Alicia. “First Love.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. (5th Compact Edition). X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia (Eds.). New York: Longman Publishers.