Carolyn Kizer's Bitch: Closing the Doors on the Past Essay

In Donna Beegle’s article An Insider’s Perspective: The Donna Beegle Story, purpose and mastery are two traits that helped her throughout life. Growing up, Donna Beegle didn’t see why education was important. The people she grew up with people that didn’t have an education higher than an eighth grade level, because many of them dropped out, got married, and started a family. Then she followed their footsteps. As she went through obstacles with her husband, four pregnancies (two of them living), and low-wage jobs leading to financial problems, Donna Beegle and her family kept moving from place to place. As years passed by, she got a divorced and had to raise her children alone. She eventually found a program, which its goal were to help single women gain an education skills to earn a living for their families. After going through the program, she decided to get her GED and continue in furthering her education. Entering college was tough for her, because she didn’t know how to talk or write properly, until one of professors, Dr. Bob Fulford decided to offer her help to correct her grammar. She accepted the offer saying, “Yes. Please teach me how to talk like you, because no one thinks I am smart. No one asks my opinion. I feel like no one can hear me.” As time went on, she got more help with other professors that Dr. Fulford connected her with. Eventually, she got her bachelor’s degree, to master’s, all the way to doctorate level.

Carolyn Kizer’s “Bitch” is describing the unnamed woman’s feelings towards an ex-lover from an unspecified time in the past, which she has just encountered. The woman was extremely hurt by the ex and has a lot of anger deep inside towards this person, but does not want to demonstrate it. The main image is the speaker and the ex-lover running into one another and catching up. “Now, when he and I meet, after all these years, I say to the bitch in me, don’t start growling.” (Kizer 1,2). The tone of the poem is angry, sad, and reflects a relationship where she was hurt and misses the other person. The woman tries to control her inner feelings when she encounters the man, concealing her true feelings with polite conversation. Just by the tone of her inner feelings, you can see the woman thinks the man from her past caused her harm.

All her memories of the night before are starting to come back to her. The line “It’s not enough to face your own regrets” (line 7) alludes to things she may have said or done and now wishes she could take it back. She is remembering the words that she spoke. Or could this be the words that someone else said to her? (Though they’re coming back fast, the things you said)” (line 8). The words that were said and the actions that were done start to come back into focus and the speaker is left to wallow in her remorse. She realizes the words and actions are not something that can be taken back. All the speaker can do is clean up the messes that has been made, think about the words that were spoken and how they led to the end of her

Arguably, poetry could be considered one of the biggest mediums artists use to express themselves to an audience. Everyday, radio stations play hundreds of poems to listeners who feel direct connections to what they hear. A great poet can write a piece, while never having met it’s reader, that poem will leave the reader feeling as if it were written for them. Pulitzer Prize Winner Carolyn Kizer, wrote poems that connected with millions of women during the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s. During a time, when women were not to be taken seriously, she was considered one of the first feminists and spread her messages to readers from all walks of life.

And when «she knows it's happening: that thing, that connection» between them, when she dances for him and «making him fall in love with her» she says to him: «We've got all we need. We don't need love. Don't diminish yourself – don't reveal yourself as a sentimental sap. You're dying to do it, but don't. Let's not lose this.» (p. 231). She knows she's driving him nuts, she knows that her rejection of his feelings makes him want to attach to her sentimentaly even more. She dances for him and teaches him what life really is. She – a 34-year-old illiterate janitor, teaches him – colledge proffessor, ex-dean, a member of highest rank of society class, what life is all about.

The ninth line “But the words of head do not remain long in the ears of heart.” tells the audience is that once we stop repeating the words that everything will be fine, our heart has the tendency to bring in the old feelings of loss and despair. In the tenth line”Heart is so new to this.” tells the audience, after all the emotional ups and downs, the person feel renewed in new ways and willing to learn new things that were not noticed in the first hand; also, the person who got discouraged started to accept his/herself and learned to cope loneliness. In “I want them back, says heart” the author tells us that regardless what happens in a relationship find the intention or reason why something is defined or experienced as good or bad; even if we still miss the person and in order not let our old life creep back and avoid the mistake of preventing moving forward. However, the person should realize that it is fine to move on since there is something greater around the

The speaker uses words such as “louring” (line 2), “deep deceit” (line 8), “grievous” (line 11) and “bale” (line 140. All of these words have sorrowful and despairing meanings to them which gives the whole poem an unhappy tone. The third and fourth lines discus that the speaker cannot even look at the beautiful face, which appears to grow more attractive daily, of the woman he loves. Moreover, the couplet tells the readers that the sorrow in the speaker’s eyes is there because of the pain he has felt due to his faulty relationship. The mouse that “lies aloof for fear of more mishap” (line 7) shows the misery felt by the speaker by using the words “aloof” and “mishap”. “Aloof” means to be stand-offish or reserved, which the speaker is because if he gets too close, he will be hurt again. “Mishap” means disaster or unfortune which altogether sounds miserable. Had the speaker used diction that was lighter or less depressed, the reader truly would not understand the misery the speaker has went through. The miserable diction depicts the deep wounds the speaker received from his love, shedding light to how much he really loved her and how bad she really hurt

The poem that I enjoyed most this week was Carolyn Kizer’s “Bitch.” I was really intrigued by the honesty and emotion that the author put into this piece. It is clear that the young woman in the poem is torn between the way she feels and the way she is expected to behave. The young woman has run into an old lover. She feels distraught and upset over the encounter, but remains cool and collected on the outside. I believe that this is a very common emotion. As the poem goes on, Kizer indicates why she is so distraught over this encounter. It seems that the narrator is angry at the ex-lover for ending their romance due to expectations put forth by society. Many times people are expected to behave in a certain way, hiding their

Your first thought is the love between the couple is toxic and lethal yet, he cannot resist his partner. But, really it is a reference to Cocaine. Cocaine is given a female voice. He uses personification by bringing the drug to life, where it can communicate with him and become part of his life. He knows that this “girl” meaning, Cocaine is going to be the death of him. While in use of Cocaine he gets numb. “But at least we’ll both be beautiful and stay forever young/ This I know, (yeah) this I know” (3-4). You say again, that he is singing about how the love is so very satisfying. But he is actually meaning that his desire for this young and beautiful woman makes him feel good. He feels as if he is invincible when he has her. Even though he seems to be aware of the consequences that come with feeling young and beautiful; with the use of Cocaine. “She told me, ‘Don’t worry about it.’/ She told me, ‘Don’t worry no more.’/ We both knew we can’t go without it/ She told me you’ll

To start off, the first stanza in her song represents a sense of how unavoidable change is and how the confusion of the bond combined with the stress of the blame game can lead to a doomed

The poem then transitions to the post-marriage life of the couple in stanza two. In lines eight through ten, the speaker states that she is too shy around her husband. Not only does she not smile, but also she does not answer her husband when he calls her. This shows that the speaker's life took a great emotional transition, as she is overly shy and feels uncomfortable around him. However, around the middle of the second stanza, the speaker transitions into another stage of

I think it's to do with pleasure, rather than pain. These two are so intimate at this moment that they just want to be as close as possible. They hold each other tight, hands and the position of his abdomen, which lacks movement, suggesting that he just stays as far in as possible.  This also indicates that one partner is sexually dominant the other is submissive.

The third stanza goes on to define the pain, only now in more emotional terms, such as "It hurts to thwart the reflexes / of grab, of clutch" (14-15), as well as the pain of continuously having to say good bye, each perhaps as if for the last time: "to love and let / go again and again" (15-16). These lines reinforce the impression that the first stanza's definition of "to love differently" is in fact an anti-freedom or state of emotional anarchy, now using words like "pester" to describe any separation; the poet is compelled "to remember / the lover who is not in the bed" (16), hinting at obsessive tendencies as being possible components of the relationship. We also learn that she believes love requires work, which she cannot do without her partner's assistance, and that this lack of cooperation frustrates her. She believes this neglected effort is the other party's fault by his failure to do his fair share, thereby leaving her own efforts ineffective, the whole of it characterized as an effort "that gutters like a candle in a cave / without air" (19-20). Her demands of this work are quite broad, encompassing being "conscious, conscientious and concrete" in her efforts and optimistically calling this work "constructive" (20-21) before ending the stanza.

The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot chronicles the speaker’s side of the conversation he’s having with his girlfriend. They are discussing the possibility of ending their relationship because he knows he’s hurt her, but as the song progresses, he slowly manipulates her into thinking that she is the cause of the breakup and she’s the only one to blame. The first line sets a pattern for the song with, “If it makes you less sad.” He is acknowledging that he’s hurt her, and is accepting the the consequence of losing her if it will make her feel better. “I hope you find out what you want / already know what I am,” The speaker sincerely hopes that she can find happiness, but knows that there is no way he can give it to her. “And if it makes you less sad, we’ll start talking again / you can tell me how vile I already know that I am,” although he is willing to let his girlfriend let go of him, he’s just as willing to let her vent to him, and give him the earful lecture he knows he deserves. In the next line, the speaker is subtly trying to suggest that breaking up isn’t the best idea by saying, “I’ll grow old and start acting my age / I’ll be a brand new page in a life that you hate.” He’s promising that he’ll try and grow up and be more mature for her and to treat her properly. “A crown of gold,” is a

The use of connotative words in this piece is the foundation of this poem and it provides an idea of what this poem is going to be about. In the first stanza he describes the woman as “lovely in her bones,” showing that her beauty is more than skin deep comparing her virtues to a goddess of “only gods should speak.” In the second stanza, the reader can see and feel the love between the two people. The woman taught him how to "Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand," showing that she was the teacher in the relationship and taught him things he thought he never needed to know. The speaker shows how when they are together, she was “the sickle” and he was “the rake” showing that this woman taught him what love is.