Which of the three prior assumptions did you make with respect to one of the poems read this week? Be sure to refer to specific lines or phrasing in your discussion.
The poem that stood out in this week’s reading was “White Lies” by Natasha Tretheway. At first, when reading the poem, I first thought I understood what the narrator was saying. When I read the lines, “I could easily tell the white folks that we lived uptown,” I was assuming only white folks lives uptown, and the narrator’s completion matches with the white folks who live uptown, then yes, the narrator will mix in as well. Then further in the poem, lines “I could act like my homemade dresses came straight out the window of Maison Blanche.” I paused, the narrator portraying to be some lavish person, which is a lie. Then my curiosity came out to question, is the narrator black, with a lighter complexion, but lying about their race, ethnicity, and lavish lifestyle. Then when her mother found out the lies that had been said, she was punished by “purifying and cleansing her mouth with Ivory soap.” I related to the poem “White Lies” because I did similar things as the narrator growing up, and my punishment was the same, my mom washed my mouth out with soap in front of my friends, which was embarrassing, but I learned my lesson.
One thought on “Ann-Marie Higgins Discussion 13”
Ann-Marie, I’m not 100 percent sure, but I think the prior assumption you made in first approaching “White Lies” was that you would understand it on the first reading. Your discussion of some of the imagery shows that you re-entered the poem and went a step further by relating it to your own experience. You “completed” the poem, as the poet William Carlos Williams urges readers to do in the article.