It takes the idea of power and places that into certain objects and then compares that to the feelings of one’s existence. The speaker says, “the fridge motor turns over / like the engine of a great ship / hauling me out to the spot in the ocean” (13). The speaker is thinking of the fridge in comparison to a ship and the size and power that these vehicles have. Then the speaker says, “that’s just as far from one home as the other” (13). The speaker is now thinking that the size and power of these vehicles is nothing compared to the silences that exist in everyday life. The vehicles that the speaker is thinking of are very large and loud and are no comparison to the everyday life that she is living. In this poem, Groarke includes a lot of domestic interior objects such as a fridge, a cellphone and even a radio and this is to show the normality that the speaker is living in. The immenseness of these objects makes the speaker feel inadequate and trivial. This poem also imposes the idea of homesickness and longing for one’s place of origin. The feeling of power that these objects emit is enough to make the speaker long for their home. They are uncomfortable with the idea of unimportance and long for a place of security and …show more content…
Her response was:
Poetry is sending these little arrow into both and trying to follow them. Because first of all, they don’t present themselves in a necessarily obvious way; sometimes what is metaphorical seems to be utterly superficial or seems to be entirely literal or vice versa, so you have to use something that you have acquired language, to try and first of all work out which is which, and then somehow evaluating what that ‘what’ can mean. (Schwall 289).
A lot of the things she said are true and relevant to the world of poetry and the poetry that she writes. The part where she says things in poetry are not “necessarily obvious” is very accurate because the way in which one interprets a poem can vary from person to person. Each person can have their own interpretation on what different things in the poem mean. For example, in the poem ‘Oranges’, one reader can see the poem from a positive viewpoint and see the goodness in the speakers life and how the speaker is living a very overwhelming life but is able to come home everyday to a wonderful family. Another reader can see the poem more negatively and see the struggle that the speaker is having between the light and dark of her life. It depends also on how literally the reader takes the words that are written. Some poets write very literally and base their works off of real life events,