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Abby's picture

I agree with a lot of what

I agree with a lot of what you said here, Jessy.  I too was disheartened by the politicization of Brooks's poem.  While I understand that these things can't be helped, that political lenses are inevitably always at some point used to view a piece of literature, it still feels unfair to have to take a great poem and narrowly define it in political terms.  I appreciate your elaboration on themes present in the poem other than guilt, mourning, etc.  While I still think those things are present, like you said, it is really important to view the positive things as well, like relief.  Acknowledging the ambiguity is acknowledging what makes the poem so brilliant, in my mind anyway.  And I think you're right that above all this is a memory poem, one that is addressing what it means to have memories that last forever, to look back on them and to still feel them informing the present. 

And yes, complexity/ambiguity is a turn-on.  I'm a Libra too:)

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