18 pages • 36 minutes read

I Go Back to May 1937

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2004

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

The “[s]word-tips aglow”

In the Strike Sparks version of this poem, published in 2004, the description of the “wrought-iron gate” (Line 8) differs from the version of the poem in 1987’s The Gold Cell. In the original version, the “sword-tips” (Line 9) of the gate are “black in the May air” (Line 9) whereas in the revision, they are “aglow in the May air” (Line 9). This simple change creates a potent difference in the imagery of the poem with a deliberate Biblical allusion. In the Bible, when Adam and Eve are cast out of Paradise, God stations a Cherub with a flaming sword in front of the gates to guard against re-entrance. The gate’s tips are literally “aglow” (Line 9) in the sunlight of May 1937, but symbolically, the word “aglow” (Line 9) creates a fiery image as it suggests the “sword-tips” (Line 9) are lit up by some internal and powerful force. The Biblical allusion implies that the speaker’s mother is banned from the Paradise of her youth as well as the potential of the kind of woman she could become. This image draws attention to the doors of the gate that are “still open behind her” (Line 8) but will soon be shut. The speaker seems to suggest their mother could have turned around and walked back through the gates, returning to a world of thoughtfulness and education. Instead, the speaker’s mother leaves her life at college, and the potential for more education, for a marriage that signifies her fall from Grace.

Graduation

“I Go Back to May 1937” begins with the speaker seeing each parent “standing at the formal gates of their colleges” (Line 1). As the speaker notes, these images are conjured from the moment “they are about to graduate” (Line 10). Graduation is often a celebratory ceremony that indicates the passage or completion of a stage of life into a new stage that is full of promise or potential. College graduation may often feel like an entrance into adulthood. This moment of transition helps to solidify the speaker’s shifting view of their parents. They move from being “kids” (Line 11) who “know they are / innocent” (Line 11-12) into a troubled adulthood. All potential and promise is eradicated by the foreseeing speaker. They tell their would-be parents, “you are going to do things / you cannot imagine you would ever do” (Lines 15-16). His and her “beautiful untouched [bodies]” (Line 22, Line 24) will eventually “suffer in ways. . .not heard of” (Line 18). Here, graduation does not lead to a brilliant future, but to a life in which they will “want to die” (Line 19).

Stone

Two different kinds of stone play an important role in the poem. Near the end of the poem, the speaker takes up the “male and female / paper dolls” (Line 26-27) of their parents to “bang them together / at the hips, like chips of flint, as if to / strike sparks” (Lines 27-29). Flint is a sedimentary rock that when struck breaks into sharp chips useful for cutting. The sharp edges of flint rock were used to make tools during the Stone Age, including some which carved sandstone. The speaker associates the “sandstone arch” (Line 3) of the college with their father and this image alludes to the speaker’s ability to carve out their interpretation of him.

Symbolically, the parents’ union has also created hurtful memories that emotionally cut the speaker. They wish to “stop” (Line 13) the abusive marriage but cannot because this action would also obliterate their existence. Selfishly, they “want to live” (Line 25). When flint chips are struck against steel, it creates fire, particularly when assisted by some sort of kindling, like paper. The parents “strike sparks from them” (Line 29) and create a fire—or passion—associated with the speaker. The speaker confirms that they are strong enough to “tell about” (Line 30) what their parents “are going to do” (Line 30). Here, as in the legend of Prometheus, fire is given to man for advancement and knowledge. This may be a deliberate undercutting of the image of the mother turning away from knowledge—symbolized by the “still open” (Line 8) college gate—at the beginning of the poem.