John Atwood's 'Can We Forget'

500 Words1 Page

Ian Rycroft
Period 2

Can We Forget?

1. It’s the future that brings us down,
2. The past makes it so uncertain, so unclear
3. We’ll hang on to a memory,
4. Because it is the future that we fear

5. We watch the sun rise and go down,
6. unknowing of what tomorrow brings,
7. we hope
8. we will not have to face it alone,
9. Because all we want is one thing.

10. No matter what the future will hold,
11. the past we no longer fear,
12. our memories are stale and old;
13. But, the future holds us here.

14. But the past leaves us lonely,
15. Craving the one thing we fear,
16. Is the pain that it comes with,
17. Worth the lonesomeness we feel?

18. A part of us knows its irrational to feel this way
19. Knowing a safe shell will keep it all …show more content…

More specifically, remembering the specific day that he passes with: “I will always remember that day.” I choose to leave this line until the very end to add ambiguity to the poem. Atwood often uses ambiguity as her strongest asset, making the reader wonder what the true subject of the poem is. In this poem, the subject is completely up in the air until : “remember the days spent together.” This line added some thought to the poem’s subject being a person who has lost a loved one. Additionally Atwood often references past events and the remembrance of the past. For this reason I focused on the fear of the future and how the past can create this fear and fuel the flames. I choose to use enjambment, similarly to Atwood. For example, this can be seen on lines 29-30, 7-8, and 28-29. Again, this enjambment is often used to add ambiguity to the poem’s meaning as the reader moves along through the poem. I choose to structure the poem in a way that showcased the changing mindset of the narrator. The first few stanzas are in a rhyming pattern. But, the final stanzas move to a a non rhyming scheme. Rhyming adds a bit of a childish tone to the poem, referencing the first few stanzas being before the father dies, though dying. The child is fearful of a future without a father. The final stanzas represent the narrator growing up and reflecting on the past memories of her father and whether or not to let them go and

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