Poetry review

For my review I chose to go deeper into "TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT DISMEMBERMENT"

This particular poem can be very intimidating or even off putting if you simply read through it, more so if you examine it. It's very first line is "When it rains, the grass is filled with blood". Strange right? Most people would ask why is there blood in the grass, or why does rain matter?

I went back through and took a deeper look at the poem and soon realized that the author didn't mean literal rain, but war or bloodshed. He states that there are many kinds of rain. Rain is brought up in a few parts of his poem, he brings up the fighting European badlands in the nineteen- eighties. American "rain" that is falling as he writes this very poem, reminds him of his heritage and culture. He mentions in his second stanza that he refuses to do something so ordinary or "English" as to write about art in the world. Instead he chose to write a book of blood.

The author then goes onto introduce some worldly issues, such as those in the middle east. He mentions the Serbs tearing out the wombs of the women that they rape, and then displaying them. This in itself is disturbing, yet we do nothing. A "Punjabi monsoon" is mentioned, I feel as though he is referring to a mass killing or the screams of death within Indo- Aryan culture and strife.

The poem is abstract yet incorporates so many things that we think about everyday life. The rain being bloodshed, and a monsoon (heavy continuous rain) being a mass killing. Who knew?