"The Bear" and "Telephoning in Mexican Sunlight" Poems by Galway Kinnell

In The Bear, Galway Kinnell starts off with a season to set the mood for the poem-- cold, "In late winter." I like the suspense in the last line of the first stanza, "the chilly, enduring odor of bear," it makes the reader feel something's about to happen. I like the repetition of words Kinnell uses, "and bend close.../and put down my nose/and know; which dance of.../which gravity-clutched leap/which trudge, which groan." I like the repetition of the b sound he uses in stanza #6, "to digest the blood as it leaked in/to break up/and digest the bone itself:and now the breeze/blowes over me, blows off/the hideous if ill-digested ear blood," and also the s sound in the lines, "blows acress/my sore, lolled tongue a song/or screech."

Kinnell has good images here, "And when it has vanished/I moved out on the ear tracks/roaming in circles." I find it funny how the speaker refers to the bear as, "lay out on his bell." The line, "dragging myself forward with bear-knives in my fists," it's filled with images and the reader can picture this clearly. I noticed the rhyme in the 3^rd stanza, "...I knew I would/sopped in blood." On the 4^th stanza, Kinnell jumps from the 3^rd day (the previous stanza) to the 7^th day, "On the seventh day." In the last stanza, Kinnell writes a good description of the bear, "in her ravine under old snow the dam-bear/lies, licking/lumps of smeared fur/and drizzly eyes into shapes/with her tongue."

It's interesting how in Telephoning in Mexican Sunlight, the speaker is thinking about numerous things while standing outside talking to his girlfriend, "...in my purple shirt/Someone had called it a man/woman shirt/The phrase irked me/...Rainer Maria Rilke.../...wore dresses and had long yellow hair." Kinnell has funny lines in this poem, such as "OK this shirt will clothe the other in me." It's also funny how the speaker has distractions while outside talking on a public phone, "...a dozen humming birds/...according as the sun struck them/stood on their tail rudders in a circle/around my head, transfixed. I noticed how the speaker refers to his shirt as not only a purple shirt, but a flower-like shirt, "by the flower-likeness of the shirt." Kinnell takes a telephone conversation outside and describes it with such detail and adventure that pulls the reader into the poem to experience it as well. He really brings this moment to life.