Wally Research
Susan Griffins poem” Love Should Grow Up Like a Wild Iris in the Fields”, gives the ideal meaning of what love should be vs. the reality of what love is. Griffin uses the metaphor of an iris to describe how both an iris and love can flourish into something beautiful and how quickly this can be broken with the everyday burdens that take over our lives. Imagery is also used to differentiate between the natural growth of an iris and the way love should blossom. Although love should evolve without difficulty, it is clear that it does not. That true genuine love is anything but genuine. That love shouldn’t be neglected, but should be cultivated like the wild iris. Susan Griffin gives the impression that she is attracted to nature. Although the poem is depressing, the setting seems lively. The poem is depressing because it touches a very deep subject “love”. While Griffin attempts to tell her version of how love should be, her voice seems grievous. The poems lines are profound and touching. Almost as if she wanted to magically become a wild iris herself. And forget all about the turmoil that is attached with love. Griffin chose to compare love to a wild iris. Wild irises are colorful and delicate, they are anything but depressing. Giving the impression that Griffin enjoys and appreciates her surroundings. She probably wrote the poem outdoors looking at wild irises herself , while daydreaming about her own love life. The poem doesn’t specify in regard to the type of love that Susan Griffin is talking about. She doesn’t focus on love between two beings but instead talks about general love for all things. She seems feminist in that she mostly talks about the role of a woman’s daily life. Like the line “gets taken to cleaners every fall” (561). I find this feminist because its most customary for girls to learn how to do laundry, than it is boys. This line also brings melancholy to mind, having to go to the cleaners every fall is anticipated and fixed, that