"Position" was written in 1964 and was one of the few poems that jumped out at me. Position can be inspiration to all of us but I feel as though it is more or less about the long road to find the love of your life. Carol Berge`, the author of "Position" was born in 1928 and was divorced after the birth of her son. Berge's poetry focuses on self-respect and people seeking love such as in this poem. I believe the past is hard for everyone to deal with; when past experiences are bad experiences we tend to carry along the baggage and try to protect ourselves from making the same mistake. Unfortunately, we close ourselves off, not allowing us to succeed and create a good memory to overturn the bad. A fear of pain is almost more dangerous than pain itself.
             The poem uses generally known vocabulary making it easy to read and easy to understand yet it has no stress pattern. She makes use of figurative language by utilizing metaphors, symbols, and consonance. She speaks of a mother who "whipped the spirit out of her son", symbolizes herself as all women, and displays consonance in the ninth line when she states "wouldn't...couldn't...didn't". I really enjoyed the way she spoke of a previous girl who didn't do any of the right things.
             It is easy to prejudge others, to put a face value on someone we don't even know. When something painful has happened in the past, we learn from it, take value out of the event, and yet we never want it to happen again. When a man is beaten by his mother, his idea of all mothers is tarnished and he is no longer willing to think well of mothers. Berge` talks about "the girl who didn't, or wouldn't or couldn't but didn't." Because of past experiences the idea of any girl as a positive and fulfilling partner is no longer valid in a mind that was once opened to the world. Berge` then reverses the situation by asking the question, but "what chance have I got/ unless you consider/ that you sta
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