I have decided to give my thoughts about a poem I heard from Natasha Tretheway. I have decided to analyze “Genus Narcissus”. Of course, this was a poetry reading so the first time I heard this poem I was a little confused when I thought the title was “Gina’s Narcissus”. But through some research on the web I was able to find the poem and reread it with the correct title.
Natasha’s poems are very descriptive and tend to have a lot of metaphors and personification. “Genus Narcissus” is about when Natasha would walk home from school and pick daffodils for her mother because she could see herself in them. But daffodils live a short spring and Natasha made that connection with her mother’s early death. I did some research on the word daffodils: its scientific genus is called Narcissus. I found it very clever for her to make the title of this poem from the scientific name of the flower she uses. Only people who choose to research or know that daffodils are Narcissus will know. They otherwise might think that since the Greek god Narcissus was vain with his own beauty that the same connection is made with Natasha and seeing herself in the flowers. She called her actions her “Childish vanity”. Showing that as a child she vainly thought of the flowers to represent herself when she gave them to her mother. Also, she says that she would “She put them on the sill and I sat nearby, watching light bend through the glass, day easing into evening, proud of myself for giving my mother some small thing”. This portrays how engulfed she was as a child in these sweet flowers and the fact that she was able to give her mother something so small that she would love so much. Another important aspect of the poem is the thick description she uses “The road I walked home from school was dense with trees and shadow, creek-side, and lit by yellow daffodils, early blossoms bright against winter’s last gray days”. I love this line because she describes the daffodils to light up the path she would walk from school but then she also has a darker side towards the end of the sentence anticipating a sad ending when she says winter’s last gray days. But my ultimate favorite line from the poem has to be that last one: “‘Be taken with yourself,’ they said to me; “Die early” to my mother.” This line proves the different interpretations two people can have on one topic. To Natasha, these flowers were beautiful and bright and narcissusly reminded her of her slender self with their “blossom held high”. To Natasha’s mother, the daffodils spoke of an early death because they bloom in late winter and die soon into the spring. Lastly, I think it is important that she gives the daffodils personification because it seems like the daffodils have this higher power since they are nature and they say to her that she is too involved with herself and that her mother will die soon. The flowers represent so much more than is originally brought to the eye and I’m so glad I decided to analyze this poem because I found so much from it than I was expecting.
