Sherman Alexie Emotions

“Those angels burden and unbalance us. Those fucking angels ride us piggyback” (985) written by Sherman perfectly describe the emotions he may have internally felt while writing this poem. “Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World” written by Sherman Alexie is the poem I chose to present for my poem presentation assignment due the mixed dark humor and emotions it conveys to the audience which I believe are grief, anger and a bit of dark humor. All in which are emotions I believe for most, if not emotions we can easily relate with someway or somehow. In this case however we will learn and discover what tragic event may have triggered Alexie to write such heavy hearted poem with really heavy hearted emotions that I believe should not be felt

Dark humor is something to be expected if you’re planning on reading a Sherman Alexie poem. “A key characteristic of Alexie’s writing is irony, and his dark humor is often buoyed by an exquisite sense of timing” (Poetry Foundation). Through this we are able to assume that his dark humor is perfectly time to lighten up such depressing moods. In “Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World” I believe we are able to get a bit of insight of insight off all the emotions from the following quote, “Those angels burden and unbalance us. Those fucking angels ride us piggyback” (985). This section of the poem I believe perfectly captures two emotions by the use of blasphemy due to using profanity against the angels, which I believe capture the emotion of anger, and grief because a person would never curse out at the angels unless they are mad or feel such strong emotions such as grief. This section of the poem also captures dark humor because it describes us humans giving the angel who is waiting for us to have our final breath a piggyback ride, which is something that I found to be humorous. In reality, I believe it is not until we get to this section of the poem that we are able to clearly tell the emotions that the poet is feeling. Now that I have first explained how the poet showed the emotions of anger, grief, and dark humor, I will secondly start

It gives us the valuable lesson of not taking the presence of those constantly around us for granted and to appreciate them before it’s too late. Due to this valuable lesson this poem gives us is why I believe it should belong in the canon, especially because the death of a love one will be something that everyone experiences at some point in their life. The emotions of sadness and grief will all be felt by everyone at some point in their life, especially when they loose a love one. Losing a love one is inevitable because it will eventually happen someday like “During the most ordinary of days” (985), which is why I believe this poem should belong in the canon. The poet of this poem as already stated is Sherman Alexie which was greatly influence by Natives Americans according to poetry foundation. Sherman was born as hydrocephalic, which is the accumulation of water fluid in the brain, which may cause brain damage. This may potentially be the reason why most of his poems evoke sadness as stated “His poems, novels and short stories evoke sadness and indignation yet also leave readers with a sense of respect and compassion for characters who are in seemingly hopeless situations” (Poetry Foundation) guaranteeing us that his poems are meant to evoke sadness and knowledge of hopeless situations, in this