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Poor North Poem Summary

Decent Essays

Mark Strand’s poem, “Poor North” depicts the life of a married couple facing countless struggles during a harsh winter. It tells of a man working in an unsuccessful store while his wife sits at home, wishing for her old life back. The way the wife copes with her sadness is both intriguing and perplexing; she misses her old life, even though it is described to have been nothing special. Despite the wife’s obvious misery, she stays by her husband’s side and they stroll in the cold together, bracing the wind. The poem represents the disappointments that life presents and the sadness that consumes individuals, leaving them with a somber outlook on life as a whole. The way the north is described as the “poor north,” in both the title and at the …show more content…

A dark light is shed on nature, with the use of words such as “soiled” to depict the clouds in the sky (3). Normally, one would appreciate nature for its beauty and ability to create peace in its observers, but clearly the speaker feels resentment and disgust towards the environment. What happened to create this negative feeling towards a seemingly harmless and normally appreciated thing? The wind is described like a bird, flying and “beat(ing) around in its cage of trees,” wanting to be set free (2). The personification of the wind gives the normally less powerful force more shape and life, as though it is capable of great destruction. Similarly, the “starlings peck at the ice,” trying to break through (3). There is a theme of breaking free from confinement in these two lines, which is an interesting concept when the reader is introduced to the wife in the second stanza. She “stays home and stares from the window” at the outside world, which is clearly a depressing scene due to the harshness of the winter …show more content…

The tensions surrounding the couple and their struggles seem to temporarily dissipate as the sun goes down and the day comes to the end. The wife is comforted by the presence of her husband, as they walk together and “lean into the wind” (13/14). There is parallelism in the way the couple braces the cold weather together by “turn(ing) up their collars,” and the way they approach their struggles. Despite their lack of success and happiness, both carry on, push forward, and refuse to give up. They serve as one another’s support system and seem to relax in one another’s presence. Breathing serves as a release. The last line of the poem says, “the small puffs of their breath [were] carried away,” ending the poem with a sense of relief. This contrasts drastically with the tense and sad tone that the poem began

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