To hold a damaged sparrow
under water until you feel it die
is to know a small something
about the mind; how, for example,
it blames the cat for the original crime,
how it wants praise for its better side.
And yet it's as human
as pulling the plug on your Dad
whose world has turned
to feces and fog, human as--
Well, let's admit, it's a mild thing
as human things go.
flutter in my palm--
the smallest protest, if that's what it was,
I ever felt or heard.
Reminded me of how my eyelid has twitched,
the need to account for it.
Hard to believe no one notices.
I think this poem is talking about how everyone focuses on the good in life and fails to notice the bad. This is shown through "the mind; how, for example,/it blames the cat for the original crime,/how it wants praise for its better side." This shows that even though humans know that they did something wrong, their first instinct is to blame someone else. In the end though, a human's ability to see the good beats the bad; this is shown through the narrator noticing the good wing fluttering.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Brenda. The poem talks about the human mind, and the way people do not like to take the responsibility for their actions, and they ignore their responsibilities by blaming it on others. In addition, I also think that the poem talks more about the speakers crime as well. The way he/she is killing a sparrow, and the way she compares it to her father. It indicates that she had an argument with her father, or that he/she killed him. When the speaker talks about blaming it on someone else, this also indicates that she blames her problems on others, but that she regrets it. "Reminded me of how my eyelid has twitched" emphasizes that her eye twitch was caused because of stress. Her human mind, like any others does not let her blame it on others, and the eyetwitch can symbolize regret.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Brenda and Erendira that the poem is talking about how when a person commits a crime the first thing they do is blame others for their action. Blaming other people does not help covering anybody because in most cases the person will either be discovered or their guilt will get to them. The author connects it with her father but can not finish her thoughts because it is probably a painful memory to her.
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ReplyDeleteI do not believe that Dunn is focusing on "people's" inclination to blame others when a mistake is made; Dunn's message is much more intimate and personal than that. The "mind" mentioned in line 4 represents all humans, it represents us. The phrase "it blames the cat for the original crime," talks about our tendency to justify our actions, not because we did anything wrong, but because we want to believe, and we want others to believe, that we did something right. As humans, "we want to be praised for the better side of our actions." Dunn gives us two examples of this. The first one he uses is the damaged sparrow. In the poem, the speaker is killing the sparrow. Even thought the speaker is killing the sparrow, he wants to believe that he is doing the right thing by putting the damaged, helpless bird out of its misery. The same can be said about the hypothetical example the speaker gives about pulling the plug on one's dad. The speaker argues that killing a person's dad (or anybody in a similar circumstance for that matter) is justified if it meant putting him out of his misery.
ReplyDeleteStephen Dunn explains how the human mind tends to shift the idea of what is moral and immoral.For example,the sparrow and the Dad are both in the same position of suffering and dieing pulling the plug and drowning the sparrow to put them out of their misery seems moral.People don't know what to decide when it comes to situations like these; our mind projects an image that tells us our decision to end their pain is right but it is actually wrong because you are still killing."But i felt the one good wing flutter in my palm" this signifies that the songbird was giving a signal that it still wanted to embrace its last few moments.Humans as we are,think its ok to cease the pain and suffering because we believe its moral.The title to me means that we have no experience when matters like these occur we just do what we think is just.The poem says "Hard to believe no one notices" to me this phrase is simply saying that people don't realize or ignore the other side to the situation and act as if nothing was an iniquity.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Brenda, the poem talks about how humans may blame the cat for its original crime yet we do something alike like pulling the plug on our dad. This shows that we do often look at others peoples' wrong doing without taking ours in consideration.
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