Summary Szybist

Mary Szybist was born in 1970 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania to a Catholic household. Growing up in a Catholic family, much of her life and particularly her writing is influence by the religion. Throughout her books and poems, her words depict her experience living as a Catholic practitioner and to give the world a sense of her life events. After she published her poetry book, Incarnadine, her meticulous effort to craft words and turn them into beautiful pieces of literature is awarded the 2013 National Book Award for Poetry. Out of the many wonderful poems in her book, her poem “Girls Overheard While Assembling a puzzle” which is about a mysterious observer piecing together a conversation between two girls as they are trying to assemble together
As I am reading this poem, I thought of the idea of how events in my life are like fragments, perhaps like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle—a puzzle I called life. Sometimes the events in my life seem out of place like the conversation, but I know alike a jigsaw puzzle these events fit together without a doubt. Furthermore, the simple dictions, the imageries, and Szybist great effort to craft a poem so elegantly, yet she still able to retain the purpose of a poem—that is to make readers ponders and questions—is fascinating. Therefore, if I have a choice to pick a piece of literature to reflect upon in the years to come, it would be this poem because of its simplistically and how it give me an idea to see my life in a different perspective—in such a way that allows me to fit together events in life as if they are pieces of a jigsaw
From line 18 to 22, one of the girl ponders, “What kind of queen? You mean right here? And are we supposed to believe she can suddenly talk angel? Who thought this stuff up?” The reason I thought this must be the pivotal point for this poem because there is a major shift from a dialogue between two girls, then suddenly multiple questions appeared, but no follow up answers the conversation just went back to dialogue form. Furthermore, with all these questions the shift acts like a hint as to the kind of event that is represented in the jigsaw puzzle. At first, I put aside the thought that the image on the puzzle could be about the annunciation, but only after I read a couple more times and figure that since this book focus leans toward the annunciation—I thought it would just make a lot of sense for Szybist to include the image of the event in her poem via a jigsaw puzzle. The annunciation is a very spiritual and holy event; thus, that is the reason why I said the mysterious observer must be a divine figure, putting the conversation together in the pre shift section, to flow along with the theme about the divine realm. Following the shift, the conversation draws attention to the girls thoughts and their imagination on what the