The
poem that interested me most but also confused me a little is the poem “Ever
After” by Joyce Sutphen. When I first read the title my first thought was that
this was going to be love poem of a man and a women who are going to married because
ever after made me think of the love stories when the couple is finally
together and they live happily ever after. When I read the first sentence “What
am I to you now that you are no longer what you used to be to me?” I still
thought that it was about marriage. I got from this sentence that they are no
longer boyfriend and girlfriend and moving on to being husband and wife. This
may be because I still had what I assumed this poem was going to be about in my
head. As soon as I read the second sentence I was thrown off. It completely changed
the words “no us” clearly showed and meant that there was no longer a
relationship they were nothing. As I kept on reading it I understood that this
was a relationship that was now ended and the women wants to know what she is
to whomever she was with in her former relationship aside from the ex. Knowing
that this is probably what most people would assume after reading this because it
is pretty straight forward concerns me because thinking back on previous
conversations in class about poems usually what you assume first is not the
true meaning. It seems that every poem has a deeper meaning that I can never
seem to grasp even when I read a poem multiple times. Also what concerns me is
the fact that I didn’t quite understand the last line of the poem “All the
sweetness, the layers of one thing and then another, and then one thing again”.
The reason this concerns me is because maybe this line might change what I think
the overall meaning of the poem is. All poems frustrate me because I can never
get there meanings myself I always have to have someone to kind of jump start
the whole process of uncovering the meaning of poems. I actually thought that
this was a poem I would get the meaning and understand until I got to that last
line. This is the reason this poem interested me and is one of few that I some
what enjoyed.
