Daniela Suarez's Poem 'Music Swims Back To Me'

Daniela Suarez
Prof. Rosen- Gonzalez
SPC1017
20 January 2015
“Music Swims Back To Me”: Daniela Suarez’ Edition
“Music pours over the sense, and in a funny way, music sees more than I. I mean it remembers better.” I feel like Anne Sexton gathered up all of my feelings, all of my thoughts, interpreted them, and placed them in two sentences and twenty words. I’m sure each and every one of us has encountered a tough situation and later crossed paths with a song so relatable, you begin to shed a few tears. For me, music goes way beyond that. Life has thrown multiple obstacles my way that have blocked me from seeing light at the end of my tunnel. Whether it was something as irrelevant as an “end of the world break up crisis” from my 15 year old
Anne Sexton began writing poetry by request from her psychotherapist, he believed writing was a good way target those negative suicidal desires and refocus them to give her a reason to live (Wagner). In this particular poem Sexton gives us a story about her time spent in a mental institution. In the first verse she talks about her first night at the institution. She uses a question “Wait Mister. Which way is home?” and portrays the image that she was just left there alone and scared about her surroundings which she later describes in detail. The topic takes an interesting turn when she wrote “La la la, Oh music swims back to me”, here she shows the small number of happy and placid memories she had that freed her from her own thoughts. In the second stanza, she describes how everyone at the institute was crazy but she liked that and it made her dance around in circles. She twists up the scenario again when she talks about her shock therapy and how even though she forgets everything, music remembers. In the last stanza she brings us back to her present state, scared and locked in a chair in the early morning waiting to receive another dosage of shock therapy with the exclusive memory of that same song in her
When you feel alone you feel confused and when you feel confused, you begin to feel scared. I can’t say that this poem fits into my life verbatim due to the fact I have never been put in a mental institution, received shock therapy or intended suicide but I can say that I see a lot of my character throughout this piece of poetry. It’s human nature to have battles, some are more intense than others, some leave bigger wounds than others but whether it’s by a sport, by a food, or by a television series we manage to push these timid moments away. My choice has always been music. I grew up in a big house, I always had the latest gadgets, I’ve traveled to places people dream about but I was never satisfied. Before you judge and say “BRAT” know that it is not because I wanted more that I was never satisfied, but because I wanted less. I wanted less screaming between my parents, I wanted less amount of time witnessing my siblings cry and I wanted less frowning and more smiling. The toughest part of my life started around the age of 15, I had told my father about my dreams of becoming a magazine editor and he shamed me by saying that the day I turned 18 I was going to have to pack my bags and leave unless I decided to pursue a career in the medical field. Fast forwarding a few years, his manipulating attitude began to affect the rest of my family which lead to a divorce. For a long time I began to believe every pessimistic word he said like “You