Snapping Beans

I love my family.  I really do.  They're supportive and loving and take great care of me.  We spend quality time together.  That doesn't mean I tell them everything that goes on in my life, or that they'll understand it perfectly.  Does that mean we aren't close?  No, I don't think it does.

Tone: Nostalgic for the life she had before school -- The way she talks about her grandmother shows the love she has for her and the respect that exists there.  The way she describes the cornstalks shows the comfortable imperfection of nature, and juxtaposed to the speaker's life, demonstrates the internal struggle the speaker feels when making her choices.

Guilty for the enjoyment of her life in school. -- lines 18-19, 26-38

Word Choice:

"splintering slats," "strychnine," "familiar/heartsick panels of the quilt," "I was tearing, splitting myself apart" 

 These word choices work together to show the complex character of our speaker.  She is the splintered one, pointing in all directions as to where she should go.  She is comfortable in her surroundings while experiencing the tense emotions of school.  Instead of heart-shaped panels, her quilt has "heartsick panels."  This gives readers insight on her true feelings as she visits home.  She is splitting because of her torn joys in her differing aspects of life.

Imagery/ Fig Lang: The "splintering slats/of the porchswing between [her] grandma and [her]"  are a metaphor for the differences between their experiences.  The speaker attends school in "the North," so her experiences must change her views and opinions from what they once were when she lived in the not North, so she splinters personalities: her school side and her family side.  The speaker's description of the setting is all natural.  The grandma gently lets the speaker know she still loves her and is there for her as family (lines 20-24).

Syntax: The poem is written in free verse, like it is the speaker's thoughts throughout this moment with her grandmother.  The mix of endstopped and enjambed lines furthers this thought, as the mind is a mix of connected and disconnected thoughts.

Theme: One often ignores one's feelings to maintain order in life.  The speaker refuses to tell her grandmother the truth, seemingly only to keep peace in her two worlds.

I think the speaker is trying to figure out where she stands between the world she has with school and the world she came from, her home.  It's relevant for many a person about to embark on the next leg of her journey through life.  Where do we stand?  Where do we fit in?  I'm just glad there will finally be an official group at church for 18-to-22-year-olds.