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“I Sit and Sew”: Poetry, Theme, and Setting
Author’s Note: This is part of my literature series and an assignment from my Literature class. All academic work can be found in a public list titled “Academic Work on Medium”. If you’d like to read the works I referenced, they are in the works cited below.
Hi everyone!
I read “I Sit and Sew” for this assignment. I was intrigued by the title. Both of my grandmothers and my Aunt Kathy were accomplished crafters. I used to sit and watch them sew and crochet for hours. My Aunt Kathy helped raise me and was a master of her craft. If Etsy had existed in my childhood, she could’ve made a killing!
It’s very interesting to me that this is a narrative poem. I love those. It’s so difficult to tell a full story in a few short verses. If you succeed in doing so, then you have truly mastered the craftsmanship of words. That is what makes Tupac and Janet and Michael and Adele and Pink so great. Anyone can study for years to hone their musical skill, but it takes real guts to spill your heart out in ink for all the world to see and hear.
The poem is filled with the inescapable sorrow of this woman. Her mind is heavy with the worries of the world around her, She calls the seams she sews “useless’. You can feel her sorrow in this piece. She is broken-hearted over the state of the world, and there is also a…