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I know you’ve been skeptical of putting poetry into the Rugby Review, but I believe that this poem is worthy to be the first. Because at some point in our lives, we will all have to come to terms with death and this poem speaks to that experience. In “Death of a Young Son by Drowning”`, Margaret Atwood writes about a mother trying to cope with the loss of her son. The emphasis on the youth of the child makes us feel even more sympathetic towards the speaker. Atwood tackles death, a subject that we all, as living beings, struggle to understand. She sees death, however, less as an absolute end but more as a beginning and a chance for rebirth and renewal. The poem begins with an allusion to the son’s birth and ends as he is planted into the ground as a seed. As readers, we cannot help but feel sadness for the mother who is lost in grief and despair as her son enters into a world that she cannot understand. Towards the son, however, we feel something completely different and in him, we can see the ambition and audacity in the youth of our generation. Just like the broken thought process of a grieving mother, the poem is written in short stanzas made up of three lines. Each stanza introduces a new thought, except for the last couplet that stands on its own, just like a flag. In conjunction with Atwood’s metaphor of a voyage at sea, the poem reads with a rhythm of ocean waves.

In the mother’s mind, her son plays a larger role than herself as the most important person in her life. This is shown by the first word of the poem, “He” (1), that is set off from the rest of the line by a comma. It is almost as if the mother is calling to a god, and that god is her son. The reader will be drawn to the first two stanzas, where the mother recrea...

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...014 has experienced. Sometimes we can feel like the mother in the poem, hopeless and wanting to drown our sorrows away, but then we can call upon our memories of the people we miss and remember all their life and vibrancy and that gives us more reason to live. This poem is a reminder of how much we should appreciate each moment and remain ever ambitious, just like the son in this poem, because it only takes one accident for a life to be taken away. And just like the mother, we have planted literal flags for Julia and Justin in the form of their slogans “Slow Down for Julia” and “Smile for Justin”, and metaphorical flags in our hearts and will continue to honor them forever. I’m sure subscribers will love this deep and engaging poem that will also look amazing on the page. This poem holds so much meaning and I hope you will consider putting it in the Rugby Review.