Second Thoughts On A Winter Afternoon Summary

Emotional Change (in Two Poems by Chen Chen)
The two poems by Chen Chen, “Popular Street” and “Second Thoughts on a Winter Afternoon,” share a similar concept: the complexity of love between the author and his mother. The poems convey the changing relationship with his mother, as the poet grew up; he lost love stability from his mother. As both of the poems begin, they contain numerous uses of pronouns “I” and “you” as Chen converses with someone in the poem. Chen also highlights the usage of meanings in words tend to “age” which leads into confining words with double meaning. Moreover, in “Popular Street” uses a playful and humorous voice meanwhile; “Second Thoughts on a Winter Afternoon” carries a sarrow tone through the piece. Nevertheless,

In “Second Thoughts on a Winter Afternoon,” the speaker demonstrates how the concept of words changes its meaning in language. Chen speaks to his partner saying, “your mother is sick & all I can think of is how sick’s also a word for cool, like ill.” (Lines 1-2) The author conveys to his partner that words age and have a double meaning. Metaphorically, he implies that words have double meaning, just like the word ill could mean “sick” and “cool”; the word cool has a double meaning as it means “awesome” and “cool tempeture”. Ultimitly, the author was able to conclude that words age too, and by aging they tend to change its meaning over time. He speaks about how a change in a word’s meaning may reflect the changing emotions we experience. How the word “sick” can mean something good, but it can also mean something bad. To point out that the speaker is making the contrast between physical illness and emotional sickness in both of the poems. While in “Popular Street,” the author speaks to the stranger about how his mother’s love changed when she found out about his sexuality. “Popular Street” the author states, “After my mother’s love became doubtful. After I told her, I liked a boy & she wished I had never been born.” (Line, 19-20) The author makes the connection between how his mother’s love had changed once she realized that he was queer. The author conveys to the stranger in “Poplar Street,” about the emotional change of love from his mother while he has become a stranger to his mother. The stranger is highlighting the alienation of his mother’s relationship with him. The relation between the mother’s loves and shifting meanings of words is important because we assume things to not