Of all our readings, I was most interested in the poem I Have a Young Sister. I was unsure of what specific type of meter the poem was written in, but I thought it could potentially be a trochaic meter, given when I read it out loud, I instinctively read it with stress on the first syllable and no stress on the subsequent syllable. As I read it, the overarching theme of this poem was the loss and regaining of innocence through youth. In multiple instances, the author uses the imagery of the natural world to convey a sense of hardening through maturity— a cherry developing its pit, a dove growing its bones, a briar becoming encased in bark. Each thing is delicate, sweet, and pure. As they and the author experience the world’s harshness, they become hardened and irreversibly changed in tangible and intangible ways. Yet, the poem describes a sort of idealism, the blissful ignorance of youth in the form of the “young sister.” She sees a world of cherries without pits, doves without bones, and briars without bark. In her naiveté, she encourages the narrator, her older sibling, to engage with and perceive things the way she does. To the narrator, it seems impossible. They cannot fathom life without its markings of unpleasantness. As the poem later points out, there is a state in which this vulnerability can exist, a quality that connects the sister to the dove without bones, the cherry without a pit, and the briar without bark: youth.
“I Have a Young Sister” Blog (8/31)
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I really loved your take on this poem! The “hardening” of each object and its subsequent loss of innocence truly adds so much depth and complexity to the poem. It also helped me answer one of the questions I had when I first read “I have a Young Sister”. I immediately noticed that all the concrete knowledge we know about the sister is that she is “young” and that she is “[far] beyond the sea”. After reading about your connections to innocence, I think it can be reasonable to assume that the distance from the narrator hints at the symbolic distance from those of us who are ignorant and those of us who aren’t. The young sister does not understand how all things pleasant have markings of pain — the narrator thinks the opposite, questioning how something can be real if it doesn’t have something “bad” to even out the good. We can imagine the sister slowly following in her sibling’s footsteps as she grows in knowledge about the harsh reality of the world; until then she lives far from the pain that comes with understanding the world, as her youth allows her to dream about doves without bones.
I like your interpretation of “I Have a Young Sister” as the relationship between the speaker and their younger self. The themes of loss of innocence and youth struck me when I read the poem with the absence of the pit, the bone, and the bark. The cherry, the dove, and the briar are symbols of frailty, sweetness, and purity— which accentuates the blissful ignorance of the “younger sister.”
I agree with Ashley’s analysis that the younger sister being “[far] beyond the sea” could symbolize the figurative distance between the speaker and their youthful self. Time is associated with the sea as it stretches far beyond what we can physically perceive.
I also find it interesting that the poem leaves out the hardened elements of the cherry, the dove, and the briar. The flower, the egg, and the seed are fragile and at each symbol’s infancy. The pit, the bones, and the bark are all solid objects that are tough to break. But there is also a darker undertone to these symbols. Cherries may be sweet, but you can choke on their pits. Doves are lovely creatures, yet they are cooked and served as meals. Briars are beautiful flowers, but they have sharp thorns that harm others. It’s not just hardening in a literal sense where cherries grow pits; it’s also the culmination of experiences over a long period that resulted in a loss of youth and its feelings. This hardening is translated into the final symbol that wraps the poem together.
I assume the loss of longing for her sweetheart at the end could indicate that the speaker lost the youthful love she once felt for her sweetheart. In youth, we want to spend more time with our crushes. We long for their affection and hope that it can be reciprocated. But when a couple spends so much time with their spouse, there will be times when your love for them begins to wane. Love is not something that can easily last a lifetime. So perhaps this poem is about the grieving of lost youth and love to hardening experiences and time.