Emily Hughes
October 7, 2014
Lynn Emanuel's poem presents a unique dichotomy, juxtaposing sensual physicality with innocent and childlike ignorance. This comparison is immediately constructed within the poem's first sentence, when Emanuel describes the Father "Smudging the nipple with his thumb / In the tough, awkward way / Children rub their eyes when tired." The creation of Ramona's character, emphasized through this charcoal sketch imagery, is somehow erotic and juvenile simultaneously.
Later in the poem, Ramona is described as "This girl whose gold tooth / Father polished with his tongue" -- an aggressively lustful image. However, this vividly repulsive image is contrasted by the following line, in which Emanuel writes that Ramona could "fill the fields with weeping painters" -- a heavily romanticized description.
This dichotomy is all structured using the repeated phrase: "Life is not pretty / Although she does not believe it." These two lines assert a sort of forced innocence to Emanuel's Ramona; they provide her with a deliberately contradicting character. By creating this strong opposition of images, Lynn Emanuel is able to paint a more real and vivid character.
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