Cozy apologia Flashcards
Summary
Whilst sheltering from the Hurricane Floyd, Dove reflects on, and celebrates the traditional and ordinary love she shares with her husband Fred compared to the hollow love of her teenage years.
Context
- Dove is a contemporary poet, who lived in Virginia during hurricane Floyd.Virginia was one of the states heavily impacted by the storm - 4 people died - so she would’ve been able to see the damage it was wreaking directly. The factual real-life backdrop of Hurricane Floyd supports the idea that this is an autobiographical poem.
- Dove is married to Fred Viebahn, so this can be seen as an affectionate tribute to him. Fred is a writer.
Structure/form
- The poem begins using the pronouns ‘I’ and ‘you’ which create an intimate tone, it is clearly addressed to a specific person, ‘Fred’ and written by a specific person ‘Dove’.
- The first stanza contains a lot of lists which emphasise the strength of Dove’s traditional and ordinary love.It is also written in rhyming couplets, which is a traditional poetic form associated with romance, consequently the form of the first stanza is traditional and simple, reflecting the love Dove is describing.
- The second stanza has a lot of caesuras and enjambments which heavily disrupts the stanza’s rhythm. This could be highlighting the way in which the hurricane causes disruption and chaos. This idea is reiterated by the absence of a rhyme scheme. Though Dove mocks the hurricane it has clearly caused disruption and damage.
- In the final four lines of the last stanza a new rhyme scheme is established. This could her decisive confidence in the ordinariness of her relationship after pondering it throughout the. The rhyme scheme differing from the one in the first stanza could show that Hurricane Floyd has impacted her, even if she doesn’t not seem to be hurt by it.
Theme
-Love
‘Cozy Apologia’
-The word apologia means defence, therefore the title can be read as: In defence of coziness. This suggests the poem is Dove defending the coziness and normality of her relationship with Fred, it may not be extremely exciting and unpredictable, but she is content.
‘-for Fred’
-This establishes the poem as a dedication to her husband and implies this is an autobiographical poem - very personal.
‘This lamp, the wind-still rain’
- The images listed are very ordinary, however remind Dove of Fred. This suggests that their love is very normal and ordinary too.
- Though she uses very common and unassuming objects to reflect her relationship, she doesn’t diminish its importance. A ‘lamp’ is used for light and often symbolises hope, whilst the ‘still’ nature of the rain could highlight the consistency of their love. Therefore, though the imagery can be seen as very domestic, ordinary and even dull, the objects listed hint at how essential their love is for her and how constant it is.
‘the glossy blue/My pen exudes, drying matte upon the page.’
-Dove uses detailed, vivid imagery to describe writing which shows the importance of writing in her life and as a part of her identity. This importance of writing to her is supported by her extensive career as a poet and her title of poet laureate in the past. As a result, Dove choosing to write not only for her husband, but about him, whilst stating that writing reminds her of Fred, stresses Fred’s significance in her life, and in extension the significance of their love. Since Fred Viebahn is also a writer, this reference is more personal, and he could potentially better understand the sentiment she is trying to convey.This further adds to the intimate, personal tone of the poem.
‘sure as shooting arrows to the heart’/’silver stirrups’/’chain mail glinting to set me free’
- The phrase introduces ideas of traditional cliché depiction of romance, with the connotations to Cupid, and creates a very humorous tone. Dove seems to be making fun of the conventional imagery associated with love.
- Dove then portrays Fred as her knight in shining armour through the imagery of chain mail and silver stirrups which further contributes to the traditional imagery of love.
- Though these lines are primarily comedic, they serve to portray the love she shares with Fred as traditional and conventional and shows that she associates Fred with freedom and safety as he comes to ‘set’ her ‘free’.
‘This post-post-modern age’
-By changing the topic, seemingly at random, Dove creates a conversational tone and suggests that the poem is following her train of thoughts. This reinforces the personal tone of the poem and the idea that she wrote the poem for a specific audience - Fred. The casual tone also makes the reader feel closer to Dove and more strongly believe in the strength of the love she is describing.
‘nudging up the coast’/’Oddly male:Big Bad Floyd’
- The verb ‘nudging’ being used to describe the hurricane creates the impression that it is gentle rather than violently dangerous, as hurricanes are.
- Dove continues to undermine the power and danger of Floyd. By acknowledges that hurricanes are traditionally named after women Dove mocks Hurricane Floyd, suggesting she is not taking it seriously. She describes the hurricane as ‘Big Bad Floyd’ which further ridicules it and undermines its power.
‘worthless’/sissy names’/’were as thin as licorice and as chewy’
- Dove creates a very dismissive tone when describing her childhood crushes. This contrasts the way she spoke so highly of Fred and shows him as clearly better than them.The simile suggests her childhood crushes were shallow and lacking substance.
- By framing Fred as superior to her childhood crushes, she implies that a traditional ordinary love is better than one that is superficial and shallow. This links back to the title, as she is defending the coziness of the love she shares with Fred and showing that other seemingly more exciting relationships are inferior to the comfortable one she has with Fred.
‘you’re bunkered in your/Aerie, I’m perched in mine’
-An ‘Aerie’ is a nest of a bird of a prey, and birds of prey commonly mate for life. This suggests that she thinks they will be together and in love with each other, for the rest of their lives, which emphasises the strength of their love.
‘We’re content, but fall short of the Divine.’
-The contrast between the words ‘Divine’ and ‘content’ shows that Dove is aware that the ordinary love she shares with Fred isn’t special and exciting, like the clichés in the first stanza, but it is still important to her.
‘And yet’
-The negative phrase creates a decisive, conclusive tone. Dove decides that she doesn’t care that her love is ‘embarrassing’ and hardly newsworthy, it is important to her and that is what matters.
