A. E. Stallings 'First Love: A Quiz'

A.E. Stallings’ “First Love: A Quiz” was a shocking poem that could leave a reader quite flabbergasted by the end. Looking simply at the title, what comes to mind is a simple quiz in a frivolous teen magazine article, but what lies beneath the surface is much more dark and filled with hurt. From the title that may make one believe this is to be a story of a child’s first love, to the last stanza, in which readers could be taken aback by the blatant change in mood, stating “the place he took me to…is called by some men hell and others love” (22,29), describing the difference between a relationship of compassion and consent between one another, and a relationship in which one person abuses their power. The figurative language and metaphors used

This stanza seems to rush by quicker, maybe because of the information within it, but also maybe because of the rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme ABCCB quickens the pace that the reader follows along at, making the suspension and anticipation grow larger. As you begin stanza three, the narrator begins listing reasons why she went with the male character that does not seem to be the best man to lay her interests with. In line 16, she states that “even his friends told [her] to beware” yet she still continues to go, another possible side effect of her longing to not be alone at her age. The use of metaphor in the statement “I felt the tread of honeybees” serves to further illustrate that the male character made her feel special and maybe even excited at some point, even though it may not have been a long lasting feeling all-together. Nothing brings a reader to such an abrupt halt as do lines 20 and 21 of stanza 3. The narrator states that the male character “was [her] uncle, the one who lived in the half-finished basement, and he took [her] by the hair”. This statement brings the entire poem into perspective- the narrator’s want for constant company, her willingness to go with a man she had only just met, and even her very blatantly obvious jealousy towards her so-called “best friend” mentioned in stanza 1. The abuse of a family member who a child is supposed to trust and put their full faith in,

The stanza begins by discussing where the unkind uncle took the narrator to, leaving the reader to look at four choices which are all disturbing, each one more severe than the other. The narrator states that she “ate bitter seed and became ripe” (24) and crude analogy to the seed of fertility, semen, which is called bitter because of its forced presence in her life, causing her to “become ripe”, a metaphor to a tree bearing fruit, leaving the reader to surmise whether the narrator was left to bare children with her abuser and uncle, causing the disdain by her parents described in lines 25 through 28. The narrator states that her mother “would never take [her] wholly back” even though it was not her fault, it was as if she was tainted. She also states in these lines that her mother “made the bearded ears of barley wither on their stalks and the blasted flowers drop from their sepals” metaphorically standing for the flowers of their family, as if her mother was a negative influence that poisoned everything that surrounded her. Her mother’s negativity and unwillingness to accept her daughter