Maybe the Mermariel isn't so alone?
Alone by Maya Angelou
Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Link to poem: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/alone-6/
Youtube video of a woman named ‘Karin’ reading it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pOV8qFlx-s
So, I’m picking another Maya Angelou poem. I thought it’d be easy to pick a poem, but I went through about 30 poems and none of them really struck me as good. Until I decided to head back to her and read this one. I really liked it.
I like how she painted a picture in my head. I don’t know if it was a picture she had in mind, but when I read this poem, I had an image in my head of someone in the middle of nowhere on a windy, stormy day with water and hard bread, sitting in agony of having no one around. They couldn’t eat their bread because it was too hard. And they only had a glass of water, but no amount of water could satisfy their thirst.
That was the image put in my head. I’m not sure exactly what the poem is about. I know it’s about being alone. But I can’t decide in my head if she means alone, like, without a lover. Or if she means alone without friends. Or if she means alone without a religious diety.
Make sure you get a copy of the assignment sheet for the essay, since you need to be using one of the poems on the list:
http://textplorations.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/poetry-essay-analysis/
Ariel, I love your picks of poems. I am compelled to respond to this one though.
We are all creations of the Creator and just like a product, only the manufacturer can decipher, repair, decode or disassemble and assemble it. Sadly, man wants to do without its creator. Numerous reasons are given in place of the one truth – that we came from a source and to that source we will return – call it whatever; but of a truth shall all answer to, be made whole by, and, return to that source – Creator. Different religion have a name for it, whatever though it is called: Greater Force, The Man upstairs, etcetera, we all need him to be whole. This poem I feel is refering to that missing part of every one of us that when joined together, makes us whole. Hear that phrase again: “How to find my soul a home”. Only the manufacturer of a product knows it in toto. Only in our creator will our soul find rest – this is not meant to be a sermon though, just my interpretation of the poem…
Why thank you very much, Ruth.
I enjoyed reading your take on this poem. It was a form of one of the ideas I had in my head for what she meant. Whenever I read your take on this, it really made me think about the deeper meaning of the poem, and I think you have it right, that she is talking about her Creator and what not. I thought this was a very deep poem. While, I have chosen to interpret in a way that I can relate to, I do think she means this in the way you interpret it as.