These love poems portray that love hurts. For instance, in “The Fist,” it is written “The fist clenched round my heart/ loosens a little, and I gasp/ brightness; but it tightens/ again.” This draws the image of loving someone so much but realizing that there might be something better for you. However, that faint thought offers light but is quickly gone because the feeling of love is too overbearing. The other poems we touched on showed how people in love brought about good things and there was not much of hurt. They showed examples of how love can, sometimes, be blinding but not really be “death defying.”
2 thoughts on “How do these love poems, “Bleecker Street, Summer” and “The Fist,” compare with other love poems you’ve read?”
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I also agree that both of these love poem by Walcott are examples of how love can be painful. I liked your idea of how one can realize that love is blinding and look for something that is better but in the end you might go back to that love that you are so used to because it is overbearing. I do also think that the other love poems we’ve read are more about the positives of love and Walcott depicts the negative sides that come with it as well.
Your perspective about Walcott’s poems is really similar to the way that I perceived the differences between his love poems and the past love poems that we have read. Walcott touches upon the more negative aspects of love that most people would not typically like to highlight. Additionally, he discusses love not between people, but between different things. In “Bleecker Street, Summer,” he discusses the bittersweet aspects of loving Manhattan in the Summer but also missing his island.