Poem found here: "Stranger by Night" by Edward Hirsch
There's a lot going on in the title. When I researched this poem, I this is also the title of collection coming out in February 11, 2020. I've learned to queue up posts, so I'm writing this post on January 13, 2020 and this should come out in March 29, 2020.
In any case, there's a lot going on in the title because the poem plays with the idea of "stranger" and "night" throughout. However, note the form of the poem: short lines and a bit long, but could be read. This idea plays itself out in the first couple of lines, "After I lost / my peripheral vision / I stated getting side swiped by pedestrians cutting / in front of me [...]"
The form of the poem plays with this lack of peripheral vision, something narrow can only be seen. The form mimics this experience and too the reader, like the speaker, can only see what in from of them. The "night" being played with is the lack of vision -- this sort of white space (or dark space) where nothing registers.
This feeling of losing is further compounded with the simile, "almost randomly like memories / I couldn't see coming / as I left the building / at twilight." The forgetting of the memory triggers the memories of how the speaker now has to live his life: or stepped gingerly / off the curb / or even just crossed / the wet pavement / to the stairs descending / precipitously / into the subway station."
Careful. This is how the speaker is dealing with the loss of sight and memory -- careful remembering of small moments. Like big moments are too complicated to remember or to wonder what is gone.
Careful of being a bother, "and I apologized / to every one / of those stranger / jostling me / in a world that had grown / stranger by night." This is where the play of the "stranger" comes in. Of course the strangers that jostle him are there, but the speaker feels like a obstacle in their way of where they need to go, back to being strangers with their own lives.
But this world that the speaker experiences now feels like he's trying to navigate around like he's a stranger in his own life now. The world is strange, the people are strange, the situation is strange, the speaker has become strange when circumstances change.
There's a lot going on in the title. When I researched this poem, I this is also the title of collection coming out in February 11, 2020. I've learned to queue up posts, so I'm writing this post on January 13, 2020 and this should come out in March 29, 2020.
In any case, there's a lot going on in the title because the poem plays with the idea of "stranger" and "night" throughout. However, note the form of the poem: short lines and a bit long, but could be read. This idea plays itself out in the first couple of lines, "After I lost / my peripheral vision / I stated getting side swiped by pedestrians cutting / in front of me [...]"
The form of the poem plays with this lack of peripheral vision, something narrow can only be seen. The form mimics this experience and too the reader, like the speaker, can only see what in from of them. The "night" being played with is the lack of vision -- this sort of white space (or dark space) where nothing registers.
This feeling of losing is further compounded with the simile, "almost randomly like memories / I couldn't see coming / as I left the building / at twilight." The forgetting of the memory triggers the memories of how the speaker now has to live his life: or stepped gingerly / off the curb / or even just crossed / the wet pavement / to the stairs descending / precipitously / into the subway station."
Careful. This is how the speaker is dealing with the loss of sight and memory -- careful remembering of small moments. Like big moments are too complicated to remember or to wonder what is gone.
Careful of being a bother, "and I apologized / to every one / of those stranger / jostling me / in a world that had grown / stranger by night." This is where the play of the "stranger" comes in. Of course the strangers that jostle him are there, but the speaker feels like a obstacle in their way of where they need to go, back to being strangers with their own lives.
But this world that the speaker experiences now feels like he's trying to navigate around like he's a stranger in his own life now. The world is strange, the people are strange, the situation is strange, the speaker has become strange when circumstances change.
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