Reading Response: Unrequited Love Poem by Sierra DeMulder
Love can make you do crazy things. It can make you totally infatuated, leave you high on cloud nine, feeling totally ecstatic like anything is possible. Love is the cheesy stuff found in every popstars hit single; it is the theme of numerous romantic comedies religiously watched over and over again at sleepovers. Most of us here are now at the stage where we get the privilege of experiencing the effects of love first hand. A boyfriend, a lover, a secret crush or even just someone you are absolutely in love with. But what happens when the one you love most, does not love you back? That he doesn’t feel the same way you feel about him? What if he, in turn, loves someone else? The famous line used by millions of young girls “he doesn’t even know I exist” is so familiar because the experience itself is so common. Sierra DeMulder knew exactly how that felt and she understood perfectly all the emotions that came with it as she wrote her poem the ‘Unrequited Love Poem’. Sierra DeMulder is an award-winning poet from Minneapolis, whose writing has the ability to carry the reader to a place of brutal and personal honesty. The subject matter she tackles and wordplay she uses is freshly unique and touches readers on a personal level. She knew exactly how to portray the contrast of having total adoration for someone who didn’t feel the same way back. She does this by creating visual images inside the minds of readers with a sequence of very detailed events. As I read aloud the poem, you will see how well she expresses her feelings as she watches the one she loves, love someone else. The dictionary definition of the word ‘unrequited’ states that it is something not returned, given, put or sent back. So love that is not returned, given, put or sent back, should surely leave someone confused, hurt and abandoned. These are the exact emotions that are being expressed within this poem. The reason why I chose and also very much love this poem is because of how emotion-filled, raw and visual it is. Many young people can relate this poem to a season or time in their lives. Because this poem is very long, the layout of it is quite basic. It has six individual stanzas. It almost looks like a story with many sentences and full stops indicating the end of a sentence. There are many places in the poem where the poet has left just one word standing alone such as ‘flood, special and woman’ to show the importance of these specific words. This is the strategy used to help the reader to stop, take a pause and think a little deeper. As stated earlier, the poem is like one big story. A short film that describes from scene to scene the detail and emotion of this woman. Many different settings that take place in each different stanza, reveal a different time or situation. For example, the first stanza is set in a bar as it states “the news of her existence will be accidentally spilled all over your bar stool”. This gives the reader the image of shock and despair as she finds out the news of another woman in her lovers life. You can picture the absolute devastation. In stanzas 2, 3 and 4 they each begin with the time, place or setting “in the morning, in his kitchen, at home”. Each visual image that is described show resonance and