Joyce Sutphen Response

Response to Joyce Sutphen:

Two things that I really liked about Joyce Sutphen poems are that they are relatable and easy to interoperate. They paint a clear picture of what the circumstances are in a poem as well as the “tone” readers should be reading to. These two lines I believe are very similar:

                It wasn’t like that. Don’t Imagine

                My father in a feed cap, chewing

                A stem of alfalafa, spitting occasionally.

And

                Tilt your head slightly to one side and lift

                your eyebrow expectantly. Ask questions.

I like how she connects the poems to the reader; making it an “interactive poem.” It’s easier to read and makes the reading more interesting. Another thing Joyce Sutphen does is breaks up sentences over stanzas. I think this is a good way to connect or “string” the poem along in such a way that it makes sense. It makes you want to keep reading. This is well displayed in this part of “On the Way to the Farm I think of my Sister”:

Once you're on it, you don't have to stop
for anything, except congestion in July
when everyone else is heading

North. You'd like it: driving at 80 mph
with the music forty years past when 
you left the planet ... but no more

gasoline at 29 cents a gallon! No more
Beatles (John and George—both dead),
v no more cows in the stanchions, no more hay
in the barn. Otherwise, everything is
pretty much the way you remember it.