Thankfully, I have never dealt with the death of a close family member. I can’t identify myself with what Bukowski is describing, which really affects the way I connect with the poem. I can only understand what he says to a certain degree, because the emotions he seeks to transmit with the poem are completely unknown to me. For instance, at first I was rather confused with the third and fourth lines of the poem, “they have long taken your blood / you are a dry stick in a basket”. Being used to the romantic language that is so widely used today, I was perplexed by the dry tone and the appalling imagery-- I couldn’t understand why Bukowski would describe somebody he loved in this way. After reading the poem a couple of times, it occurred to me that the real significance of these two lines can be discovered if they are contrasted with the last three lines of the stanza, “in this room/ the hours of love/still make shadows”. Even though Jane is no longer anything more than a “dry stick”, she vividly lives on in Bukowski’s mind, for he can still feel her love and see her shadow.
Something that stands out to me is the choppy rhythm of the poem. There is no consistent meter and sentences seem to be divided into small fragments. I am not sure if this was done on purpose, but when I read it aloud I realized that in a way, the rhythm of the poem imitates how we sound when we sob. When we cry, it is very hard for us to speak smoothly—we constantly stop mid-sentence to catch our breath, so our sentences sound like small fragments put together, very similarly to the way this poem is written.
Something that stands out to me is the choppy rhythm of the poem. There is no consistent meter and sentences seem to be divided into small fragments. I am not sure if this was done on purpose, but when I read it aloud I realized that in a way, the rhythm of the poem imitates how we sound when we sob. When we cry, it is very hard for us to speak smoothly—we constantly stop mid-sentence to catch our breath, so our sentences sound like small fragments put together, very similarly to the way this poem is written.
