Comparison of two poems

       The poems “Variations on the Word Sleep” by Margaret Atwood and “Monorhyme for the Shower” by Dick Davis are structured around someone they love. The two poems share similarities and differences.

       The author, Dick Davis, of “Monorhyme for the Shower” is sitting back admiring a woman in the shower. This is concluded from the description of her lifting her arms to soap her hair (line 1). As the author watches the woman, he realized how quick time passed since he first loved her. He says “the movement of that buoyant pair [her breasts] is like a spell to make me swear twenty-odd years have turned to air” (lines3-5). Now he flashes back to when they are young and he wouldn’t dare approach her or to ask her out (line7-8). Years passed, they have been together and had children. He still has a burning love for her and at the end of the poem she turns to him after her shower and smiles that he is there. The author is amazed that the girl he loved when he was young, the girl he was afraid to confess his love to, is his wife of twenty plus years and she loves him.

       In the poem “Variations of the Word Sleep”, by Margaret Atwood, the narrator expressed how they would like to watch “you”, someone they love, sleep. They say it may not happen (line 2). This could mean that they may never be together. The narrator loves the sleeper but they do not love her. The narrator wants to enter the sleeper’s dreams. The narrator wants to experience the beauty in the dream and wants to be able to protect the sleeper from their fear. The narrator wants to be unnoticed but necessary, as necessary as air is to breath.

       The narrator in both poems is admiring a loved one and thinking about them. The difference between the two is that in “Monorhyme for the Shower” the narrator has their love, but in “Variations of the Word Sleep” the narrator wants the other person’s love.