I chose to analyze “My Brother at 3 A.M.” by Natalie Diaz for a couple different reasons. First of all, after reading about Natalie Diaz’s journey I was sold on learning more about her art. Then after reading some of her poems, “My Brother at 3 A.M.” stopped me in my tracks. I am typically extremely dense when it comes to poetry so my initial reaction to the meaning behind the poem ended up not being the reality of it so I thought it would be interesting to explore the different ways this poem could be perceived.
After I read through it for the first time, I thought this poem was about physical abuse and the father’s addiction. I was sure that the son was terrified of his father physically harming him. Even though the brother wasn’t saying that his father was the devil and wasn’t even pointing in his direction, I still had an inkling that he was trying to insinuate his father was the devil. I saw the “sores on his lips” as possible lesions caused by blows to his head. I had the impression that because the father was sleeping through the entire interaction between the mother and son, he was probably passed out from an extensive amount of alcohol or drugs which also would have contributed to him physically harming his son. I believed that this poem was exploring a mother learning about her husband beating their son due to his own substance abuse.
I discovered just how dense I am when it comes to poetry after doing some research and discovering the real meaning behind this poem. Of course then, it all finally made sense to me. The “sores on his lips” were from his substance abuse addiction and the “devil” that he was seeing were hallucinations from that substance. Diaz is bringing to light an issue that unfortunately, many people suffer from. This particular instance saddens me further with a mother discovering these tendencies of her son. I cannot relate to feeling the love that a mother has for her child, but I can relate to having a mother who would give me the clothes off her back in a heartbeat. I can’t imagine what this mother or what any family member experiences when someone is suffering from an addiction, especially the moment she realizes it at the end of the poem.
Despite the captivating nature of this poem, another reason I was drawn to analyze this poem was the repetition of verses that Diaz used to exaggerate the serious points she was hoping (and did) get across to the reader. Personally, the repetition reminded me of a panicked mother who is asking the same questions over and over again in hopes of helping her child. The most impactful phrase that was featured multiple times that also exhibited personification was “Stars had closed their eyes or sheathed their knives”. This is a sentence that I thought about countless times trying to make sense of and what I came up with is that the “stars” being the night surrounding this confrontation was so awful, that they couldn’t stand to watch any longer so they “closed their eyes or sheathed their knives”.
In conclusion, this work of art that Natalie Diaz has created will stay with me forever. Addiction is a very real and very heartbreaking thing that I wish wasn’t as common as it is. Substances bring out the “devil” in the person they’ve consumed. She not only did a phenomenal job of showing how substance abuse affects the victim and their mind but also their loved ones. This poem has also inspired me to read more poetry in my free time with how much I truly enjoyed it despite it’s dark meaning.
