Analysis of a poem

The poem of Beth Ann Fenelly called “Poem Not to Be Read At Your Wedding” is a good example of short laconic poem with hidden meaning. Its name already assumes that even though this poem had to be written as a present for a wedding it can’t be such as it exposes personal feelings of the author which can not be stated publicly as they might hurt the feelings of bride or broom. From the plot of the poem we can state that it was written by a very close person of the bride, who loved her and was is not very happy with a marriage. We can also make such observation as the author writes: “You asked me for a poem about love in lieu of a wedding present, trying to save me money.” It’s generally agreed that people who are invited to the marriage or those who are close to the bride and broom do not usually save money on buying them presents as wedding presents have to be sincere. So this issue that bride asked for a poem instead of store-bought present witnesses that the attitude of the poet to the wedding is not positive and probably the author regrets about it. Other lines:
“For three nights I’ve lain under glow-in-the-dark stars I’ve stuck to the ceiling over my bed” also make a witness tht it’s very difficult for the poet to write such poem as there a lot of memories with bride as a main hero, these are love memories. The words “I’ve stuck to the ceiling over my bed” also are symbolic as they mean that person is very depressed or even frustrated as such feeling of apathy can be only in case of deep moral suffering.
As the writer goes further we can see that writing a good poem for the wedding is very hard, as the words which have to be used while composing a wedding ode are very different from her real feelings and from her attitude to this ceremony. And the words “Well Carmen, I would rather give you your third set of steak knives than tell you what I know” say about unwillingness of the author to write a wedding ode and moreover the author says that it’s easier even to spoil relations with the bride that to confess the feelings to her. Here “a set of steak knives” is a symbol of breaking any kind of warm mutual relations, as in ancient times there existed a taboo on giving such presents for happy ceremonies as weapons. The person who wrote a poem understands that it can be done nothing from his side in order to prevent the marriage, as his opinion is miserable in order to cancel it: “how they see us from that distance as miniature and breakable”. But at the same time he warns that wedding can be a very big mistake for Carmen as her naive and sincere expectations might be wrong and she will only break her heart.