Mementos 1
By William Snodgrass
Sorting out letters and piles of my old1
Canceled checks, old clippings, and yellow not cards2
That meant something once, I happened to find
Your3 picture. That4 picture. I stopped there cold,
Like a man raking piles of dead leaves in his yard
Who has turned up a severed hand.5
Still, that first second. I was glad: you stand
Just as you stood – shy, delicate, slender.6
In that long gown of green7 lace netting and daisies
That you wore to our first dance. The sight of you stunned
Us all.8 Well, our needs9 were different, then.
And our ideals came easy.10
Then through the war and those two long years11
Overseas, the Japanese dead in their shacks
Among dishes, dolls, and lost shoes:12 I carried
This glimpse of you, there, to choke down my fear.
Prove it13 had been, that I might come back.
That was before we got married14.
- Before we drained15 out one another’s force
With lies, self-denial, unspoken regret
And the sick eyes that blame: before the divorce16
And the treachery. Say it: before we met17. Still,
I put back your picture. Someday, in due course,
I will find that it’s18 still there
Outline
This poem looks at how we keep memetos that remind us of the past and when they symbolize an emotional connection they are difficult to get rid of. The poet comes upon a picture of his former wife which shocks him and reminds him of how beautiful she once was and how uncomplicated life seemed when they were young. That picture carried him through the war giving him hope that his life would return to normal.
That was before they destroyed each other with their individual emotional problems which led to divorce. He has not completely separated himself from her because he does not destroy the picture, but puts it away, knowing he can still find it.
Analysis
1. The word “old” is at the end of the line to emphasize the word.
2. Alliteration of the “c” sound suggests the choking of dust and also contempt or disgust.
3. “Your” begins the line which shows her importance.
4. “That” shows it means more than any other picture.
5. This is a shocking simile. Finding this picture shocked and disturbed him.
6. All these words suggest she is like a flower.
7. “Green” suggests youth and netting suggests delicacy. The ‘daisy’ is an uncomplicated flower.
8. Why start the line with ‘Us’? Could it be that the poet and his friends competed for her?
9. ‘Well’ brings a tone of sadness and needs could mean that they were too young to knoe what they wanted.
10. The young think it is easy to change the world because they have little experience of hardships.
11. ‘war’ and ‘two long years’ suggest suffering and contrast with the words and indeas in Stanza 2.
12. All these things suggest emptiness and death. Dishes where food is gone, shoes with no feet inside and dolls are copies of humans. Reality is not idealistic.
13. ‘It’ stands for youth, love and idealism
14. “Married” is at the end of the sentence – like a heavy weight.
15. ‘Drained’ suggests waste and emptiness. One another – they were both to blame for the breakdown.
16. Divorce is a severing like the hand in the first stanza.
17. Say it: before we met. In this line the poet forces himself to admit something he does not want to admit. Their betrayal of one another had gone on for some time.
18. All the love and passion and idealism referred to in the 3rd stanza.