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The Wedding Portrait
| Critical Analysis #1 |
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The Wedding Portrait |
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Romy Senior Member
since 2000-05-28
Posts 1170Plantation, Florida |
Her long skirt is wrinkled and his tie lies crooked against his worn jacket, as if chores had been finished only minutes before entering the shop to shoot the obligatory photo. My great-grandfather stares intently at the camera, as if he has caught a glimpse of me, hiding in the shadows, peeking at him from somewhere in the distance. Standing obediently next to him, my grandmother, dark hair pinned high and proper, seems uncertain and shy. She peeks cross-eyed from behind the cheap lens of her spectacles at a world that will always see her in a negative light, simple minded, lucky to have married at all. She was a quiet woman, with a gentle manner that never exposed the grief she must have felt, when he died so soon after their daughter was born A fiery car crash that ended his marriage, before it had a chance to develop into something other than a convenient arrangement between distant cousins hardworking and poor striving to build a life together on a small, dusty farm on the outskirts of town. |
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| © Copyright 2000 Deborah L. Carter - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Jana Tovey Member
since 2000-05-30
Posts 257USA |
It feels like I am looking at their photograph, as I read through the stanzas. The additional history inserted as background to the photo is effective. Maybe the dark and sable brown tones of the old- timey photos could have been incorporated somehow to accentuate the feeling that the Poem is the Photograph, but I loved it the way you did it. |
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jenni Member
since 1999-09-11
Posts 478Washington D.C. |
debbie-- i thought this was a really wonderful piece. i absolutely LOVED how you worked in words relating to photography in the piece, "lens," "negative," "exposed," "develop" ... very, very well done! and the atmosphere and tone throughout is perfect. one question, though? in the second stanza, you say it's your great-grandfather getting his picture taken, and next to him is your "grandmother"; isn't the other person in the old photograph supposed to be his wife? am i reading this wrong? missing something? wouldn't the woman in the photograph be your great-grandmother?  thanks for a most enjoyable read, debbie. keep 'em coming, ok? jenni [This message has been edited by jenni (edited 05-30-2000).] |
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