Re-Analysis of "Dear Reader" by Rita Mae Reese

 Analysis found here: https://ddcpoetry.blogspot.com/2013/02/analysis-of-reader-by-rita-mae-reese.html

I was looking her up and found this bio of her on Poetry Foundation.  Her quote on Anti- got my attention:

I'm against poems that aren't against anything. Poems that only have one mind (or fewer). Poems that go in one direction only. I'm even more against poems that go very slowly in one direction. I'm against poetry that's never smoked, can't take a joke and can't remember my name.

When I was rereading her poem, "Dear Reader," I kept the statement, "can't remember my name" in mind because I think I missed something in my original analysis of the poem.

The poem is also pretty straight forward narrative about caring for someone that's slowly losing their mind -- perhaps dementia which, weirdly enough, is also a poem with one mind or rather one complete mind that can comprehend things, the speaker's perspective.

And that's what I might of missed -- something about the speaker.  I say the speaker is a nurse and it's pretty obvious in the line, "I am simply / your nurse, terse [..]"but the repetition of "daughter" in the beginning and end of the poem makes me think that the nurse is also the daughter.  

So when we get to the anecdote about the niece, and how much the "you" grasps onto the speaker's forearm and says, "she is /everything" there's more complexity brought into the poem.  The "you" losing their mind find meaning in family that they recognize, but can't recognize the nurse possibly being the daughter as well.

It must be painful to say "I'm your son / daughter" to someone  who you used to know as a parent, but doesn't remember you.

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All the Rita Mae Reese's poems on Poetry Foundation come from her 2011 book The Alphabet Conspiracy where "Dear Reader" is also in.  I read "J-O-B" on her website and I feel this poem fits the quote above.  The voice feels different, less cold and more curious.  It's a poem that remembers too much or wants to.