After listening the two presentations on last class, I am very impressed with the poem named “Drawing From the Past” which was recommend by Spencer and Ruth. We know that the whole poem describes the scenes in the past from the title. The scene that the poet, Jane Kenyon, eats sandwiches with her mother is described concretely through a series of specific images like red tomatoes, white bread and so on, from which, it is seen that the memory of eating sandwiches with mother is still fresh for Jane.
Jane treasures that moment but, as the title shows, it has gone. For its reason, the key is her older brother. The sentence “My brother was good at it, and I was alert to that, too,” shows that Jane’s brother is better than her. Also, she can only enjoy the moment alone with her mother when her brother absent. So she worries her brother would take mother’s love away form her. That’s why she use the word “alert” rather than others.
I think there are two interpretations towards the poet’s emotion. First, it may be that all these great memories are gone and what Jane worries becomes a reality. That’s why the title emphasizes “the past.” Thus, the poet expresses her sorrow in the poem. And the other understanding is that it simply expresses her nostalgia for old days. And the poem just reflects the cute little girl, the past Jane who worries about her brother would stole the mother’s love from her.
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