A Gray Haze Over The Rice Feilds- Poem Response 8

For the record... I was absent when the new packet got handed out, so I just picked a poem that no one had done yet for my response, from the old packet! Ok. That was the disclaimer, here's my response:

Looking at the title, I had to read the poem to know the meaning behind the "gray haze." I originally thought it was a literal foggy day, but it most definitely is a shadow, or hazy memory of the authors childhood. The author is searching for a memory to clarify her childhood, yet she stumbles upon these things that she is trying to forget. The author says, "I am looking out in search of memory, not death." The author obviously dealt with death and hurt in her childhood, or the haze would not be there. I really liked the style of compare and contrast Jayanta Mahapatra(author) uses when she talks about the relationship with her grandmother compared to her mother. I interpreted the meaning, that the grandmother showed so much love, and gave so much attention that the author was incredibly sad when she died. This contrasts to the mother, who was absent in the child's like, because of the mother's own youth. "Behind the closed door of her youth," was the exact line referring to the mother. I automatically thought of a teenage girl getting pregnant and ignoring, not intentionally, her child because she was not ready to have one.

In the second stanza, the line about the dangling thread was the most important. I assumed this meant that there is something missing from this person's life. That the author, or whoever she was writing about, always feels like her thread is not complete- that she missed out on something, or is searching for something that is constantly out of reach .

This poem was really good :) so far I haven't hated any of the poems!!!

<3