Mary Szybist was born in 1970 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania to a Catholic household. Growing up in a Catholic family, much of her life—and particularly her writing—are influenced by her religion. Throughout her books and poems, her words depict her experience living as a Catholic practitioner and give the world a sense of her life events. After she published her poetry book, Incarnadine, her meticulous effort to craft words and turn them into beautiful pieces of literature was awarded the 2013 National Book Award for Poetry. Out of the many wonderful poems in her book, her poem “Girls Overheard While Assembling a puzzle” is about a mysterious observer piecing together a conversation between two girls as they are trying to assemble together
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First and foremost, since the girls’ conversation is in fragments, Szybist is trying to support the notion that this poem is about an observer piecing together a conversation between two girls. The images rather than being in full and complete form, are in fragments which belongs to a larger picture just like the jigsaw puzzle the girls are putting together that contains various sizes of pieces of a bigger image. The poem begins with an image of one girl questioning her friend about the precise color of a piece of the puzzle, “Are you sure this blue is the same as the blue over there” (line 1-2)? Then immediately afterward, we are introduced to an image of one of the girl fancy about what she wants for the summer, “I need a darker two-piece this summer, the kind with elastic at the waist so it actually fits” (line 4-7). Obviously the two images show the poem is produced with fragments of a larger conversation the girls were having, there are missing pieces of the conversation and a lot of small talk that leads to different views of what the girls are thinking or doing at the time of the conversation. Going back to the idea of a jigsaw puzzle, you are not going to immediately find pieces that will fit together …show more content…
When one of the girls mentions, in lines 11 to 13, “I don’t see why God doesn’t just come down and kiss her himself,” and in lines 25 to 28, “ I wish we could walk into that garden and pick an X-ray to float on.” These words may sound like a simple, even childish talk between two girls. They are questioning and imagining things that are unlikely to happen, such as a God sweeping down to kiss someone or floating an X-ray. However, in my perspective, these words contain more complex meanings than its simple outer shells. The words in a way are informing what kind of puzzle the girls must be assembling—possibly a jigsaw puzzle of the Annunciation since Szyhist’s Incarnadine contains more than a few poems of the Annunciation—and how the puzzle has made those girls see beyond the physical world. Through Szybist simple, yet powerful words I got the sense of what those girls must be feeling as they imagine a world where our physical world intertwines with the divine dimension—where the possibly runs wild with a God sweeping down from the sky or an X-ray we can float on. Furthermore, the diction in this poem may seem to be easy to understand, but they withhold insightful information as to what the girls are doing and what they are thinking. When reading this poem, its arrangement and the unknown observer that is piecing the
First and foremost, since the girls’ conversation is in fragments, Szybist is trying to support the notion that this poem is about an observer piecing together a conversation between two girls. The images rather than being in full and complete form, are in fragments which belongs to a larger picture just like the jigsaw puzzle the girls are putting together that contains various sizes of pieces of a bigger image. The poem begins with an image of one girl questioning her friend about the precise color of a piece of the puzzle, “Are you sure this blue is the same as the blue over there” (line 1-2)? Then immediately afterward, we are introduced to an image of one of the girl fancy about what she wants for the summer, “I need a darker two-piece this summer, the kind with elastic at the waist so it actually fits” (line 4-7). Obviously the two images show the poem is produced with fragments of a larger conversation the girls were having, there are missing pieces of the conversation and a lot of small talk that leads to different views of what the girls are thinking or doing at the time of the conversation. Going back to the idea of a jigsaw puzzle, you are not going to immediately find pieces that will fit together …show more content…
When one of the girls mentions, in lines 11 to 13, “I don’t see why God doesn’t just come down and kiss her himself,” and in lines 25 to 28, “ I wish we could walk into that garden and pick an X-ray to float on.” These words may sound like a simple, even childish talk between two girls. They are questioning and imagining things that are unlikely to happen, such as a God sweeping down to kiss someone or floating an X-ray. However, in my perspective, these words contain more complex meanings than its simple outer shells. The words in a way are informing what kind of puzzle the girls must be assembling—possibly a jigsaw puzzle of the Annunciation since Szyhist’s Incarnadine contains more than a few poems of the Annunciation—and how the puzzle has made those girls see beyond the physical world. Through Szybist simple, yet powerful words I got the sense of what those girls must be feeling as they imagine a world where our physical world intertwines with the divine dimension—where the possibly runs wild with a God sweeping down from the sky or an X-ray we can float on. Furthermore, the diction in this poem may seem to be easy to understand, but they withhold insightful information as to what the girls are doing and what they are thinking. When reading this poem, its arrangement and the unknown observer that is piecing the