Fires Dare to Ignite

Garren Small, who is a very well known writer, spoke to our class on Tuesday about his poetry and how it relates to the theme: love and desire.  One of the initial questions Small's presented to the class is "Can love conquer hate?"  This is a universal question that people have been asking themselves for centuries.  Especially with the bombing at the Boston Marathon just recently, this question relates to whether hate will always prevail or not.  Through his poetry, Small ultimately answers the question by saying yes.  Yes, love can conquer hate.  While love conquering hate is a major theme in his poetry, he touches upon various other themes as well.  Small does write about love and desire, along with the concept of being alive, and committing to live your life the way you want to. 

One of the poems that Small read was "Brother and Sister".  In the poem, a brother and sister are having a conversation with each other because their mother just died.  Instead of a typical grieving conversation between the two, the sister rambles on about her sadness, whereas, the brother eschews the topic and changes the subject to other things like cars.  Through the poem, the reader gets the sense that the author (Garren Small) is more sympathetic towards the sister.  Because the sister feels helpless in the situation, Small views her as being the more loving and emotional one of the two siblings, and he views the brother as being indifferent, and he ignores his feelings.  Both of the siblings are having two separate conversations, which makes the reader question if they are really even talking to each other despite them both being in the same room because they are both very distant in their communication.  The separate conversations between the brother and sister shows how people do not communicate well with each other at all.  In order for people to truly communicate with each other, they need to listen to one another, which these siblings are not doing.  They are both caught up in what they are saying that they cannot see beyond that to have a deep conversation with each other that would allow them to truly connect.  Small describes this as being a "love loss" because they are missing out on a potential emotional connection because they refuse to listen to each other.  While the author is clearly more sympathetic towards the sister because she appears to be more loving, I do not agree with this.  I view the brother as being more loving the sister because he is unable to express his feelings.  I think that because he has been so damaged by the loss of his mother and the loss of love, that he has to separate from his emotions in order to carry on living.  I do not think that this makes him less loving, it makes him more.  When people invest more love into a relationship, it is harder for them to move on than it is for other people.  The sister is able to comfortably talk about the death, which I think makes her less sympathetic than the brother.  The brother is clearly very emotionally damaged by the death.

Another poem that Small read was "Along the Row".  The poem is about a couple, who are in love, but even though they are together and in love, they still feel alone in their relationship.  This brings up the whole question: "Are you better off being single than being in a relationship where you feel alone anyways?"  Just because two people are together does not mean they feel that way.  Love is very complex in the theme in this poem because it shows that sometimes love cannot take away the desire to feel a connection with another person.  The poem also shows that when it comes to people and relationships, there's always a little something more there that we will never get to.  This poem also touches upon desire and how it is very hard for people to express what they really want.  Therefore, this is why a lot of people stay in bad relationships because they are too afraid to say they want something else, and because communication is very hard for all people to do.  Very often, people are talking, but not actually saying anything.  This is seen with the businessmen in the poem.  They talk about superficial topics, but they are not communicating who they really are to each other.

Another poem that Small read was "One Day".  Small did not write this poem; in fact, it was read at President Obama's inauguration.  This poem is essentially a son thanking his parents for all the hard work that they have done for him.  This poem especially touches upon parental love.  The poet uses distinct imagery about his father's hands and how those hands dug trenches and picked sugarcane to provide a better life for his son.  He also writes about his mother ringing up groceries for twenty years for his son to even write this poem.  The poet forgives his parents for not being able to give him everything he wanted because he understands that his parents are only human. 

The poems that Garren Small read during the lecture all related to the theme of love and desire.  There are all different types of love: romantic, unrequited, parental, and many more.  There are also many types of desires that people want.  However, both love and desire cannot fully be expressed when people cannot effectively communicate them to others.