“Remembering Summer”

While riding the Lefferts Boulevard “A” express train I came across a poem called “Remembering Summer” written by W.S, Merwin and decided to use it for my Poetry in Motion Blog Post #1. This poem is definitely speaking about the summer and winter seasons because of the title “Remembering Summer”. My initial reaction to this poem was a feeling of warmth and uncertainty as to the speaker`s preferable season between summer and winter. This was because I interpreted the poem as the speaker describing how short the summer season is compared to winter. The poem starts off with “Being too warm the old lady said to me/ is better than being too cold” (lines 1-2). An old lady said to the speaker that she prefers to be too warm than too cold. The speaker says “I think now/ in between is the best because you never/ give it a thought but it goes by too fast/ I remember the winter how cold it got/ I could never get warm wherever I was/ but I don’t remember the summer heat like that/ only the long days the breathing of the trees”(lines 2-8 ). The speaker is saying that the summer is so brief that he/she can’t remember much about it, but the winter is so long that they can almost remember everything because of the difficulties of finding warmth. The speaker feels that if it was between warm and cold, they would be happier and would bring more pleasing memories. The theme of this poem can be the difference in temperature preference. The old lady prefers to be very warm than very cold, while the speaker prefers to be between warm and cold. I think that this poem was chosen for subway riders to get them to think deeper and dissect this poem and look at the true message that’s behind the poem; although it is about weather preference, when you look deeper, I think what the speaker is saying is that the good time such as warm summer days goes by so fast that we don’t even remember the heat that comes with it and because the winter last so long, we can definitely remember all of the days spent trying to remain warm, in other way, in life, one must learn to be in the moment and enjoy the good times for they go by so very fast, then we’re right back to dealing with the challenges and stress that life have to offer. A lot of people ride the subway to  and from many different settings, such as work, school, the hospital and once they get to that setting, they have to deal with so much and therefore that short period of time being in the subway, maybe they can be in the moment and try to have that piece and even meditate because the train ride goes by so fast and many times we forget our ride to school or work but remember the stressors we have to deal with once we’ve reached our destination and depart that train. I think this poem is accessible for general readers because I have googled it and have found it on various webpages. The only question I have about this poem is “Why didn’t the speaker spoke about other seasons such as fall and spring?”.

2 thoughts on ““Remembering Summer”

  1. Li Pan

    I really like how you professionally analyzed the poem. ” we can definitely remember all of the days spent trying to remain warm, in other way, in life, one must learn to be in the moment and enjoy the good times for they go by so very fast, then we’re right back to dealing with the challenges and stress that life have to offer.” When I read this poem, I only think that the poem is trying to tell reader how much the speaker miss summer and how short the summer is . But after I read your interpretation for this poem, I have a new way to read it. When we have a happy time, we should cherish it. When we have a tough time, we should come up a way to go trough it. Happy time is always short, but painful time will not be eternal.

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  2. Ilknur

    I really like how you also expressed your own emotions towards this poem. I actually enjoyed reading this poem and compared to myself because when I first read this poem I felt that I miss the summer where, ” we can definitely remember all of the days spent trying to remain warm, in other way, in life, one must learn to be in the moment and enjoy the good times for they go by so very fast.” I agree how you said summer is short and last for short of time and winter comes right away, yes, I always thought I didn’t enjoyed summer that much.

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