Mary+Mathis+-+RS+Gwynn


 * Release **
 * By: R.S. Gwynn **

Slow for the sake of flowers as they turn Toward sunlight, graceful as a line of sail Coming into the wind. Slow for the mill- Wheel's heft and plummet, for the chug and churn Of water as it gathers, for the frail Half-life of spraylets as they toss and spill.

For all that lags and eases, all that shows The winding-downward and diminished scale Of days declining to a twilit chill, Breathe quietly, release into repose: Be still.

When I first read this poem, I immediately enjoyed it mostly because of the soothing message the R.S. Gwynn is trying to portray. It is our senior year, and many of us are still anxiously waiting to hear if we were accepted into their top choice college. Others have already been accepted and are making the difficult decision of committing to the right school. I could not have chosen a timelier poem for this particular moment of our senior year. In addition to its calming message, I found the descriptive imagery each of the stanzas to be particularly well written. In the first stanza, Gwynn lists four reasons that the reader needs to slow down his life. Gwynn is attempting to convince the reader to stop rushing through life and to pause to notice the commonly overlooked events such as the gradual turn of flowers “as they turn toward the sunlight,” the sail on a boat “coming into the wind,” the weight on the millwheel slowly rising and falling, and even the short lived lives of the spray coming from the water as “they toss and spill.” Gwynn does manage to use a rhyme scheme to add to the peaceful feeling that his poem is trying to provide for the reader. I personally find it easier to relax and slow down if the words do happen to rhyme. On line 3, Gwynn uses enjambment so that he is able to rhyme “mill” with “spill.” The sentence in the concluding two lines is divided up with punctuation which forces the reader to pause and take breaths just as the poem tells the reader to “breathe quietly.”

I have attached a link to a time lapse video of several types of flowers blooming which can help provide a visual for what Gwynn was describing in the first two lines of this poem. []


 * Scenes from the Playroom **
 * By: R.S. Gwynn **

Now Lucy with her family of dolls Disfigures Mother with an emery board, While Charles, with match and rubbing alcohol, Readies the struggling cat, for Chuck is bored.

The young ones pour more ink into the water Though which the latest goldfish gamely swims, Laughing, pointing at naked, neutered Father. The toy chest is a Buchenwald of limbs.

Mother is so lovely; Father, so late. The cook is off, yet dinner must go on. With onions as her only cause for tears <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">She hacks the red meat from the slippery bone, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Setting the table, where the children wait, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Her grinning babies, clean behind the ears

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">When I first read this poem, I immediately thought of everybody’s childhood nightmare Sid from Pixar’s //Toy Story//. Gwynn is well-known for his satirical poetry, and this poem is a very fine example of it! He uses the classic rhyme scheme ABBA to give the poem a playful, childish feel. The poem begins how almost any sane person would expect in a playroom: “Now Lucy with her family of dolls.” Gwynn cleverly uses enjambment to postpone the true intent of the line until the second line toying with the readers’ expectations and surprising them with a dark twist. The final two gruesome lines in this stanza mention Charles’s intense boredom when he attempts to set his pet cat on fire. The poem continues in the second stanza where it mentions destruction of their “latest goldfish gamely swims” implying that they have killed several before this. His choice of word “gamely” gives the reader the understanding that this poor fish is being hunted and deliberately killed by these bored children. Line 7 brings the reader back to the scene with Lucy’s dismembered dolls comparing her toy chest to Buchenwald. Now, this comparison between a famous Nazi concentration camp and a playroom is probably the last one that anybody would expect to see in a poem, but Gwynn ingeniously squeezes it in for an intense image in the readers’ minds. The final stanza finally mentions the parents to these awful, misbehaved children. Line 10 implies that this family is well off especially since they are wealthy enough to employ a cook. Gwynn makes sure to say that the mother never cries but “with onions as her only cause for tears.” This shows that the parents do not pay any attention to their poorly behaved children which could be the reason to their unruly outbursts. Gwynn wrote this poem to comment on how parents neglect their children which in turn causes them to demand attention by acting out such as “pouring more ink into the water” and ruining one’s dolls “with an emery board.”

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">I have attached a clip from //Toy Story// that shows a scene from Sid’s terrifying playroom. Start watching at around 2:50. []

//**<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif';">By: R.S. Gwynn **//
For years his parents saw that wreaths were placed Beside the crossroads where their youngest boy Left lines of rubber from his shattered toy, An epitaph new concrete has erased.

For years they mailed petitions for a light Or four-way stop; the city deemed it best To table them until the time was right. It took The Mall to honor their request.

You can’t take parents’ sorrows to the bank But you can always bank on corporate needs. Now like a docile river traffic flows By fraying ribbons lost among the weeds, And slowing to the changing light we thank Blockbuster, Target, Texaco, and Lowes.

I know that this isn’t the typical poem about nature being the basic form of beauty or even a poem from a man to his lover. However, I found this poem to be fairly interesting especially since it seems as if R.S. Gwynn is criticizing the power that major corporations have in our culture. Gwynn used a sonnet form to highlight the parents’ love for their dead son. The poem opens up in the first stanza with an image of parents placing wreaths as a memorial which they have been doing for years for their youngest son that died in a car accident. The second half of this stanza creates a tragic, vivid image in the reader’s mind about the skid marks that were a result of the accident. However, the city paved over the “lines of rubber” (1.3) that were a sort of “epitaph” (1.4) for the son. The poem continues to the second stanza which begins with the parents petitioning for years for a solution to this hazardous intersection. Although this couple has been fighting for years for a traffic light or even just a four-way stop, the city denied them what they want saying that it was not suitable and that the time was not right for it. These parents decided that the next move was to turn to The Mall for some assistance. The third and final stanza shows that the parents of the deceased boy finally got their wish of the traffic light at this intersection. However, the city only granted this wish because the major corporations in the area “Blockbuster, Target, Texaco, and Lowes” (3.6) wanted a light in that location. The "fraying ribbons lost among the weeds"(3.4) proves that our culture constantly looks over what would be considered morally correct. Gwynn is commenting on our society’s tendencies to give large businesses an unnecessary amount of power while people with significantly less amount of power struggle to have their voices heard.



//**<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif';">By: R.S. Gwynn **//
It will come with warnings published on the air, So beware Laying bets on gulf-born breezes harboring Hopes of spring. Dwarf azaleas, playing suckers’ odds with doom, Race to bloom, But the front’s relentless lashing drains each bud- Full of blood, Laying low without distinction as it kills Daffodils, Calla lilies, bougainvillea, mustard greens. For it means All beginner’s luck runs sour, to be lost To the frost, Like a wealth of unconsidered good advice. Glazed with ice, Greenness shatters, brittle as an ancient bone, And our own Stunned camellia stands, white petals shed below— Snow on snow.

This poem is very unusual for R.S. Gwynn since he usually writes satires, but in this particular poem Gwynn is describing a landscape filled with beautiful blooming flowers and several spring plants. However, as most people know that are familiar with gardening, a frost can wipe out plants quite easily. This poem is all about the frost that threatens the plants’ success in the upcoming spring. Gwynn begins “Coastal Freeze” in an ominous tone with the opening line describing the frost as unavoidable when he says that “it will come”. The poet continues to explain how plants such as the “dwarf azaleas, playing suckers’ odds with doom” have false “hopes of spring” which are quickly and easily ruined with “the front’s relentless lashing drains each bud-/full of blood”. Gwynn describes the brutal nature of the frost as it kills plant after plant without any discrimination whatsoever. The frost leaves no “daffodils, Calla lilies, bougainvillea, mustard greens” unharmed and not favoring one type over the other. There seems to be absolutely no hope for these flowering plants because it seems as if all “greenness shatters, brittle as ancient bone”. He ends this poem with the image of a white camellia shedding its petals which land on the freshly fallen snow showing how the frost wipes out all of the landscape until it seems as if there is only “snow on snow”. R.S. Gwynn used the rhymed form for this poem a combination of five trochees which is followed by a single line containing only three syllables. The line with the five trochees always rhymes with the subsequent line. To emphasize the powerfulness of the frost, Gwynn personifies it giving the frost a harsh, heartless nature. The flowers, the victims to the frost’s unforgiving behavior, are also personified with the characteristics of being weak and overly hopeful.

I have attached another time lapse video to help further illustrate the powerful effects of a frost. Watch closely though! It is a little difficult to see at first. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z1V9jXU1ZY&feature=fvwrel