Sitting Down To Breakfast Alone By Christian Wiman

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In the poem “Sitting Down to Breakfast Alone,” Christian Wiman reminisces about a local diner. Even though he views the Longhorn Diner as run-down and in a small and abandoned town, he is drawn towards the waitress and culture of the diner. Throughout the poem, he portrays how sitting down to breakfast alone at the diner is a worthwhile experience. Through imagery, Wiman allows the reader to comprehend his perspective of the diner. He mentions details such as “the jangly door or a crusted pan, the wall clock’s black, hitchy hands”(11-12) to portray how the diner itself isn’t visually pleasing. Later in the poem, Wiman describes how the waitress remembers where all of the customers sit, including the “crook-backed builders, drought-faced farmers, VF’ers mumbling through their wars, night-shift roughnecks so caking in black it seemed they made their way back every morning from the dead”(39-43). This imagery provides the reader with a sense of the rich variety of people who eat at the diner. Even though the diner isn’t in the best shape and the customers are somewhat rough, this doesn’t dissuade Wiman from eating there. Rather than having a disgusted attitude, Wiman has an intrigued attitude because these unique elements of the diner are what make it …show more content…

When Wiman describes the waitress, he depicts the feeling of comfort that she brings to the customers. A rhyme sequence isn’t utilized throughout the entire poem, but he inserts rhyming couplets when describing her actions with words like “grease” and “expertise”(1-2), and “places” and “faces”(19-20). These rhymes make the poem flow and therefore demonstrate how the waitress is what holds the diner together. Even though Wiman describes the waitress as “unmarried, childless, homely, slow”(22), the poetic manner in which he describes the waitress display the fond attitude that Wiman has towards her. It also evokes a feeling of

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