Poetry

The poem this week is "The Hat Lady." Although I found this poem sad and dark I really love this poem! It was eloquently written and compared people to hats and not like typical baseball hats like everyone seems to think of. Hats that a Hat lady makes especially for that person. I believe the hats describe who the people are like the uncle wearing "homburgs" (which I totally looked up because the name gives no hint as to what it looks like) that make him cool and slick for wearing a hat like that or the grandfather wearing a "yarmulke" the Jewish hat men wear. It shows the grandfather is old fashion and religious, but then the author even goes on to describe how the hat was "like the palm of a hand cradling the back of his head..." Shows how he could be caring and loving at the same time. The whole third stanza is the one that describes his mother (whom the poem is about). Describing hats the hat lady had made for her. The hats were beautiful and made his mother beautiful like the actress Myrna Loy. Each hat represents a different aspect of his beloved mother the one that's like a birds nest shows she's a great mother like a bird with a nest of hatching's, the next hat that made her look like the actress shows how beautiful she was, the last hat with cherries shows she loved kids and was a great mother. The hats made up who the mother was. Then the last stanza is the sad one. It's the one that says the mother had cancer and had wrapped her bald head with a towel. Then the Hat lady came back and instead of making a new hat for the mom she had a hat with death. The mom died of cancer and it's representative how in the last "scene" of the poem death is the only one with a hat. He's the only one that has power and the hat represents that making him higher than everyone else that didn't have a hat. The poem is a four stanza poem with no rhyme scheme it was more like a small story with some symbolism.