Prepare to talk to a tyke maybe free#

It seems each line was constructed as an individual unit of meaning, creating such varied line lengths that the reader is given only a map of images with which to navigate this narrator’s consciousness.

Prepare to talk to a tyke maybe free#

However, it is a difficult text to discern meaning from, partly because of the jarring free verse that Kinnell uses throughout the book. This amazing line is just one of many examples in this text of poignant statements on modern love, modern war and what it is to be human. In this state, he asserts that the only way to find a mate is to “Let our scars fall in love” (31). It is here that he hypothesizes how we are drawn together by our fears, our “wandering” through life and “losing our way” (21). But, it is in the sections where Kinnell explores the dark side to romance and human connection where his language and images really shine. On this journey, the speaker addresses the timely subject of the Vietnam War (sections V and VI), blaming the “Christian Man” (42) for perpetuating the deceit and power dynamic that have caused so many nightmares on this planet.

In this ambitious work, Galway Kinnell creates a narrator who, in the face of becoming a parent, confronts the nightmares of his culture and his personal history in order to make sense of life and its inevitable “road” to death (73). Just the kind of weird where looking at your wifeĪ Book Where People Sleep And There Are Some Bears Having sat on a table in front of the television