The Layers

Upon first examining the title of this poem, “The Layers,” I predicted that the poem would be about a person’s “layers,” such as their personality, and who they present themselves to be on the outside versus who they really are on the inside. After reading the poem, I found the title in the line “Live in the layers, not on the litter.” In context of the poem, I’d say this line and the title are using layers to represent different parts of our lives. Throughout the poem, the speaker is exploring and explaining his past, which he compares to chapters of a book. The speaker talks about his relationships (his tribe of true affections), and his lost connections (his scattered tribe and his feast of losses). The speaker often expresses anxiety in