Dear Laura Newburn,

I was looking at your poem “The Speaker”, and I had a question about why you decided to use parenthesis twice in the first stanza of this poem. The first time you use them is when you say “(as She/ recounts it now)” in lines 12 and 13, and the second time you use them is in lines 15 and 16, when you say, “(because you are/ so good, and so quiet).” What I see happening is both times you use parenthesis, you use them to set off the spots that directly refer to the mom, to show that in this memory, the mother’s perspective was important. I noticed the mother was very important throughout the poem. When the daughter describes her looks and her mothers, she describes them both as “terrible beauty” in stanza one, lines 9 and 11. I think it shows that the daughter thinks of herself as just like her mother, at least when she was young.

            However, this does change in the second stanza, after the stranger has asked the mother if the daughter sitting on the shelf is a little girl or a doll. When, in her childish way, she establishes herself as both of these, you describe it as “So you follow the old/makers, the masters: you fashion/ your mouth…” (stanza 2, lines 22-24). The line break gives emphasis to the word “fashion” in line 23, which suggests the daughter has decided on an identity for herself rather than relying on her mother for that.

            There was also something else I noticed about this poem, and that was its sonnet-like form. The first stanza was like the exposition part of a sonnet with how it described the setting and the people in it, in this case the library with the mother and daughter in it. The second stanza provided the twist with the daughter’s answer to the stranger’s question. Instead of answering it, because it was most likely directed toward her mother, she purses her lips in an attempt to become both a doll and a little girl. I thought this structure worked very well for this poem because it allowed me to first take in the situation, and then the twist left me with something to think about, in this case the daughter’s identity. I was curious if you went with this form on purpose, or if you were not really thinking about the sonnet form and just liked this particular structure. Either way, it’s very effective.

I really enjoyed this poem’s creative way of exploring identity through the situation in the library, and thank you so much for taking time to read my letter.

Sincerely,

Melissa Cobb