Penelope Shuttle's Poem 'In The Kitchen'

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The poem “In the kitchen” written by Penelope Shuttle shares with readers how difficult it may be for humans to mourn the loss of a loved one. The poem starts off with the speaker (Penelope) giving a few things around her kitchen human qualities, also known as personification. The author maintains a sad yet mellow tone throughout the entire poem. Almost like the author didn’t want anyone to feel the pain she was feeling, she simply wanted a way to express her feeling regarding the loss of her husband.
The author uses repetition on line seven and twelve, Shuttle states, “I am trying to love the world”. When the author first included this line in the poem my first thought was she clearly has something against the world. Upon doing further research, …show more content…

Shuttle was able to find comfort in things she probably didn’t even care about before the loss of her husband. This is also the purpose of the poem, Shuttle turned to poetry to safely release her emotions and share with the world how she was mourning with the loss of her husband. The author’s relationship between the setting and her poem is quite unique as well. I’ve never come across a poem where the author finds comfort in things you would find around the kitchen. This poem does depict society in a way. It comes to show how lonely a person can feel despite being in a world filled with billions of people. However, I am still unclear as to why she found comfort in the kitchen, she could have chosen the living room or any other room but she didn’t. This may be tied to the fact that women are often portrayed as people who cook and clean and that the kitchen is the heart of the house, or simply because it was the room filled with the most memories. Overall, my favorite line of the poem is “I am trying to love the world” I feel that when people go through a hard moment in their lives, they are often quick to blame the problem on the world and hate it right away, but Shuttle is staying strong and is trying to be thankful that at least she was given the opportunity to live and experience things in life that some people often don’t

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