Analyze the treatment of the theme of death and its aesthetic Essay

Analyze the treatment of the theme of death and its aesthetic representation. interpret sandy mcintosh poems, cemetery chess and - Essay Example In a clear attempt to deal with his mother’s death, the poet created numerous poems that explore, on multiple levels, the experience of irrevocably losing a loved one. His use of language is both simple and complex. The words he uses are approachable, easy to understand, and string together in an easy-to-follow sequence. However, the way he strings them together and the words he chooses to place in various places invoke a sense that there is much more being said than what comes through on a simple reading. In poems such as â€Å"Cemetery Chess† and â€Å"Between Earth and Sky†, McIntosh provides us with a seemingly whimsical look at death and its effects as he discusses his mother’s decline into death and eventual burial while also hinting that there’s something much deeper, more insightful, behind the words. Within both of these poems, McIntosh makes the topic of death something approachable and something that can be talked about without fear or ov erwhelming sadness. As fellow poet Neil de la Flor says, â€Å"McIntosh unlocks what's inside of us scurrying about in a disorganized, yet manufactured chaos of our own doing. McIntosh puts that mess in order and narrates the stories, the poems, that run through our veins and his. He paints a world that we can walk into and sit down safely next to our greatest fears and hopes† (2013). ... In the poem "Between Earth and Sky", the speaker exposes some of the loss he feels as he begins to lose his mother. He writes at a time when he has already come to accept his mother's condition and is able to speak from a point of reflection and contemplation. He tells us this openly and realistically, admitting that it has been a process: There was a time when I would have corrected her right then: "No, Mother," I would have said. "That isn't true." But I've known for some time she's been going round the bend, her memory dissolving in dementia. It is only a surprise to find she has been busy rewriting our scripts with happy endings! (McIntosh, 15-20) Part of his acceptance may be the amount of time that has passed since his mother was first diagnosed, or it might be that he, and his mother have reached an age where death is no longer all that frightening. According to Feifel and Banscomb, "at both 'conscious' and 'fantasy' levels, older subjects displayed less fear of death than the ir middle-aged and younger counterparts (cited in Neimeyer, 2004) in scientific studies regarding attitudes toward death. However, that doesn't mean that the speaker is fully aware of what is going on. While looking at this poem, it is tempting to say Fink is wrong in his assessment of McIntosh's poetry as a whole that "the male speakers (and sometimes female characters) in his poems and prose-poems often seem to be caught in the grips of a psychological determinism that, to greater or lesser degrees, thwarts their agency, or else their lack of insight about how they are manipulated by external forces prevents them from perceiving possibilities for agency that can increase their range of