Janice Mirikitani's Suicide

I overall really liked Janice Mirikitani’s “Suicide Note.” I found the piece to be beautiful, as well as very sad. I absolutely loved the detailing and vivid descriptions, the relation to the birds. Reading this I felt the hurt and sorrow that this girl experienced. I feel the the author 's message was that there is pain all around us. The pressures of feeling not good enough not strong enough, not pretty enough. The causes that contributed to this young woman 's suicide was the feelings of how she was not smart enough, the remote causes of her family pressuring her to be perfect so when she did not get the grade she felt she should of it had an immediate impact on her which resulted in her feeling she is not good enough. Also, the feelings of not being pretty enough or good enough, had her feeling

She feels as a male she would be confident and glowing receiving praises as she would “swagger through life.” I personally do not feel she is correct. Some males tend to also feel the same ways as she, not good enough. The words and phrases repeated in this poem are “not good enough, not strong enough, not smart enough, and not pretty enough.” She also repeats comparison to a bird. To me these repetitions help me relate to exactly how she felt. Deep down she believed those things she repeated which in the end drew her to actually committing suicide. I feel her pain in having experienced this feeling for myself. I feel Mirikitani chose the bird to symbolize this young woman 's struggle because birds are delicate. She was delicate. I feel the sparrow in this poem represents the girl. She this “sparrow dazzled by the wind on the ledge.” It represents her ready to jump, knowing the air will not hold her, “the snow burdens her crippled