Colossus VH

The poem has six stanzas and doesn’t have a rhyming scheme. It is clear that the poem is speaking about her father but only so if you have a little bit of outside knowledge of her life. If you know about her past you would be able to connect the dots quickly. She is very angry at her father because he passed away and wasn’t there for her. She holds it against him and has not forgiven him for not being there.

The title is very important because throughout the poem she discusses how significant an impact on her life her father’s death has had. She also compares herself to small things when she is speaking of herself and him. She makes him seem so much larger and more important than herself hence Colossus is an appropriate title.

In the first stanza she states that she doesn’t understand “him” also saying that the sound off his lips are those of farm animals. “Mule-Bray, pig grunted and bawdy cackles” She then proceeds to say that he is worse than those animals.

The next thing that jumps out is in the third stanza. She compares herself to an ant in mourning. That image makes you think of all kinds of thing. I imagine an ant in mourning means that because she is even lower and smaller than an ant and very insignificant. She says that’s how she feels in his presence.

“I open my lunch on a hill of black cypress” has a connection to death because it is commonly known as a tree used to decorate cemeteries. So that is another hint that she is talking about her father who died. In the following stanza she begins to speak on the impact of her father’s death saying that when he left is more ruining then a lightning stroke. This is a comparison that is describing the impact her father not being there had on her life.