Introduction
Love and death are the two topics that most often appear in literature. Works of prose and poems tell stories of loving and losing one another, and this topic never loses its relevance to the reader. At the same time, each author adds to the general themes by enriching the piece with their personal history or an interpretation of past events. The two poems – “Myth” by Trethewey and “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane” by Knight – demonstrate two unique takes on a story about love and death. Trethewey presents a poem-long palindrome about loss and grief, while Knight follows the story of a man whose death is more symbolic and spiritual than physical.
Poem Analysis
In the first poem, death is intimately connected to love – the narrator’s grief over a lost loved one is rooted in their desire to reunite. Trethewey presents a story of losing somebody important to the narrator. The poem begins and ends with the phrase, “I was asleep while you were dying,” pointing to how the character missed a tragic event and could not prevent it or be present (Trethewey, 2009). As a result, the person who passed disappeared from reality in the eyes of the narrator while still existing in her sleep.
Trethewey (2009) writes, “You’ll be dead again tomorrow, / but in dreams, you live,” this line shows the difficulty of letting go. However, as the narrator is unsuccessful, “Again and again, this constant forsaking” continues daily when she wakes up (Trethewey, 2009). The circular nature of grief and hope highlights how grief is a constant emotion strengthened by one’s love.
In the second poem, Knight does not discuss romantic love and physical death but the love of freedom, rebellion, and the end of one’s character. The narrator talks about the life of “Hard Rock,” – a prisoner with an explosive temper who has been sent to a hospital for a lobotomy or a similar procedure and then returned to prison. The author describes him as “known not to take no shit / From nobody” before being sent away (Knight, 1986).
The other prisoners “wrapped [themselves] in the cloak / Of his exploits” and often reminisced about his fights (Knight, 1986). However, when Hard Rock returned from the hospital, they saw a different man who “grinned and looked silly, / His eyes empty like knot holes in a fence” (Knight, 1986). These lines show that Hard Rock died symbolically, as his brain was altered to reduce his thinking and emotional abilities, removing any trace of his old personality.
Poem Comparison
While both poems talk about different relationships and types of death, they both deal with grief. In “Myth,” the protagonist cannot fully accept the passing of a loved one and tries to reunite with that person endlessly. In the second poem, the men surrounding Hard Rock mourn his brashness and fury – “He had been our Destroyer, the doer of things / We dreamed of doing but could not bring ourselves to do” (Knight, 1986). The prisoners grieve the man they know because they love his freedom and ability to oppose the oppression of the prison to which they are confined.
Conclusion
Poems about love and death can be completely different from one another, showing the incredible complexity of human lives. In some works, such as “Myth,” the death of a loved one is described as a constant loss, as the narrator’s grief moves in a cycle between sleep and waking. In “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane,” the prisoners mourn the loss of a fellow man’s personality, which was “killed” with a medical procedure. Both stories explore love and death and the connection between loss and its aftermath.
References
Knight, E. (1986). Hard Rock returns to prison from the hospital for the criminal insane. Poetry Foundation. Web.
Trethewey, N. (2009). Myth. PBS NewsHour. Web.
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