"Men at My Father's Funeral," "Onions" and "Housework" Poems by William Matthews

I enjoyed reading William Matthews poem, Men at My Father's Funeral. The only thing I don't like is the transition from the second stanza to the third, "the very spit/in my mouth was sour with ruth." It interrupts the flow of the last line in the second stanza. It contains strong images that I like, but this line would sound better if all the words would be in the same line or at least in the same stanza. Also, I don't like the word "eloquence" for some reason. I would prefer an image or a verb instead. I like the way Matthews writes, "These weren't men mute about their feelings." What a cool way to say that men are expressing their emotions in the speaker's funeral. The men at the funeral have emotions too and feel the loss of the speaker's father. I like the last line, "like a dial tone, from our bodies," good description.

In Onions, it's interesting and funny how Matthews wrote a poem about simply onions starting from dicing them to opening them...he developed this topic well throughout the poem. He describes dicing onions, and the inside of onions in such detail. For example, he introduces the reader to onions right on the first line of the first stanza, "how easily happiness begins by dicing onions/A lump of sweet butter slithers and swirls across the floor of the saute pan." And on the fourth stanza he describes the inside of the onion like if he's discovering new things as he opens it (for the first time). For example, "for there's nothing to an onion but skin, an it's true you can go on weeping as you go in..." The speaker sounds surprised when opening the onion like he has never seen the inside of the onion before. I suspect that maybe the opening of the onion symbolizes life, we learn an discover new things as we go through life--cool!

The poem, Housework, has so many nice details, such as, "the tiniest socks ever knit are crumpled on a chair in your bedroom/like the air inside a church or basketball/For who would sleep, like a cat in a drawer." I like the way Matthews makes comparisons throughout this poem, "And how still, like the air inside a church..., " "How precise it seems, like a dollhouse, I'd begin to rub the house like a lantern...," "For who would sleep, like a cat in a drawer."