Analysis Of How To Watch Your Brother Die By Billy Collins

Billy Collins born in 1941 and wrote Introduction to Poetry in 1988. Billy Collins wrote the speaker of the poem to be a teacher who is wanting his students to read a poem. He gives some examples of how he wants his students to read a poem. The examples he used could be analyzed to mean that he wants his students to take their time, be open-minded and patient, while not over thinking it. He wants his students to use different literature tools to see who the author is, who is the poem speaker, and what the poem means to the students.

“How to Watch Your Brother Die” by Michael Lassell was published in 1990 for Carl Morse impacted me the most. The poem struck deep within me because I know how it feels to lose someone close to you and watch their life slowly leave them and being able to do nothing about it. The brother was shown frustrated because there was nothing he could do to help his brother. The silent last apologies and “I love you’” was similar to my experience as well. Then choosing to relish in the memory of the loved one at their best instead of their last days.

Using the Billy Collins’s strategy the poem was spoken by the brother that was healthy.

It let the readers see it from a loving brother’s perspective, to see his thoughts, loss, and questions. The poem by Michael Lassell does not have a rhyme scheme. There were a lot of imagery and word choices that stood out. When he said “looks like

a cadaver” and “Listen to the doctor with a steel face on”. It brought me back to when I took my dying grandma to the hospital and in her final days, looking past how she looked, grey and almost

dead.

I believe that the author wished to portray the steps of grief when someone close to you dies while being the backbone of the family. Through the brother consoling his brother’s lover, trying to get him untested drugs that could help, to hold strong through the funeral, and finally releasing him and remembering the good memories. I personally connect with this poem because I was in the same shoes he was. My grandma was dying of cancer and we took her to our house and took care of her. We watched as the days went by, her strength slowly failing, becoming fragile, slowly her face being sunk in, ashen complexion with a twinge of yellow. When she passed on a sunny day, I smiled and remembered all the days I’ve spent with her, the laughter and tears. The advice and the love.