From the poems listed in poetry of witness I have chosen to write about "Charlie Howard's Descent" by Mark Doty and “The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window” by Joy Harjo. Both poems impacted me emotionally, though for different reasons. Although they both pertain to death, they do so in two very different ways (one a murder and the other a suicide of sorts.) the following is based on my interpretation of these two poems.
In "Charlie Howard's Descent” the main character is a gay youth who is thrown off of a bridge by a couple of homophobic men. The poem states in part “Between the bridge and the river/he falls through/a huge portion of night; /it is not as if falling/ is something new…” (Doty, lines 1-4) The part that stood out to me in this poem is that, when I first read it, I had no idea what it was about. I wanted to know more about the situation as soon as I was done reading it. The author uses such great imagery, especially when in the description of Charlie Howard, when he says, “and his earrings shone and his wrists/were as limp as they were.” (Doty, lines 18-19) I did a little research and found out what the poem was about and I was immediately outraged. In real life, Charlie had told the men who threw him off the bridge that he could not swim “it's all right, that he knows/ they didn't believe him/ when he said he couldn't swim, /and blesses his killers” (Doty, lines 46-48) in fact the perpetrators later said in court that they did not believe Charlie could not swim. Before reading this poem, I had never heard about this incident. I like that the author raised awareness about this event with this powerful poem.
In “The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window” the author write with such detail it is sometimes hard to understand, in the course of the poem she talks about her family, “She is a woman of children, of the baby, Carlos, / and of Margaret, and of Jimmy who is the oldest./ She is her mother's daughter and her father's son./ She is several pieces between the two husbands” (Harjo, lines 10-13) and her childhood, “When she was young she ate wild rice on scraped down / plates in warm wood rooms. It was in the farther / north and she was a baby then. They rocked her.” (Harjo, lines 16-19) From what I gathered from the poem, the main character feels trapped in her own life and is contemplating suicide because she feels dead inside- like she has wasted her life. In the end she decides to continue living and goes back inside “She think she remembers listening to her own life/ break loose, as she falls from the 13th floor/window on the east side of Chicago, or as she climbs back up to claim herself again.” (Harjo, lines 61-65) This stuck out to me because it seemed like the author was indecisive about dying or not dying, like it could go either way and she would not care.
In “The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window” the author write with such detail it is sometimes hard to understand, in the course of the poem she talks about her family, “She is a woman of children, of the baby, Carlos, / and of Margaret, and of Jimmy who is the oldest./ She is her mother's daughter and her father's son./ She is several pieces between the two husbands” (Harjo, lines 10-13) and her childhood, “When she was young she ate wild rice on scraped down / plates in warm wood rooms. It was in the farther / north and she was a baby then. They rocked her.” (Harjo, lines 16-19) From what I gathered from the poem, the main character feels trapped in her own life and is contemplating suicide because she feels dead inside- like she has wasted her life. In the end she decides to continue living and goes back inside “She think she remembers listening to her own life/ break loose, as she falls from the 13th floor/window on the east side of Chicago, or as she climbs back up to claim herself again.” (Harjo, lines 61-65) This stuck out to me because it seemed like the author was indecisive about dying or not dying, like it could go either way and she would not care.
To close, I would like to stay that both poems were written with an air of sadness, I feel that the either poem could be read multiple times and never fully understood. The authors both did an amazing job conveying their point. I like that they both concluded with a hint towards the future, in “Charlie Hoards Decent” the author says “and blesses his killers/ in the way that only the dead/ can afford to forgive.” (Doty, 56-57) While in “The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window” the author states the lead character “she climbs back up to claim herself again” (Harjo, line 64) both lines give a feeling of hope to the reader.
Citations
1. Harjo, Joy. “The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window.” Poetryfoundation.org. Poetry Foundation, Web. 21 June, 2011
2. Doty, Mark. "Charlie Howard's Descent.”
Link: http://behindthelinespoetry.blogspot.com/2010/10/mark-dotys-charlie-howards-descent.html
