“Monuments For A Friendly Girl At A Tenth Grade Party”
Psychoanalytically, “Monuments For A Friendly Girl At A Tenth Grade Party” infers that William Stafford gathers unconscious remembrances about Ruth who was his crash at grade ten. Stafford writes:
“The only relics left are those long/
spangled seconds our school clock chipped out/
when you crossed the social hall/
and we found each other alive,/
by our glances never to accept our town's/
ways, torture for advancement,/
nor ever again be prisoners by choice.”
The relics embody Stafford’s autobiographical memory regarding Ruth. Clearly, their glances during the party hinted that they loved each other despite their dissimilarities. Stafford’s capability to recall the particular undertakings during the party suggests that Ruth was exceptional. The emblematic monuments construe that Ruth will always be in Stafford’s memory.
Death’s demise is ironic. Stafford writes:
“Now I learn you died/
serving among the natives of Garden City,/
Kansas, part of a Peace Corps/
before governments thought of it.”
It would have been unfeasible for Ruth’s death to supervene while she was working with the Peace Corps considering that the Peace Corps had not been actualized by the government. Perhaps, the irony exhibits how predestined their love was because it did not go beyond the party.
"Scars"
“Scars” incarnates the ubiquitous wounds of life: “They tell the slant life takes when it turns/ and slashes your face as a friend.” Life could follow antagonistic path based on its capability to slash one’s face. The slashing generates a wound take time to mend. The wounds of life could be discernible or imperceptible: “there/are years in that book; there are sorrows/a choir can’t reach when they sing.” Some wounds are so deep that they cannot be contracted by rousing choir songs. Wounds are inevitable in life: “Rows of children lift their faces of promise,/places where the scars will be.” The children will eventually submit to the innate scars as long as they are surviving. Accordingly, emotional infliction is a splinter of existence.
