Entry 5: Connections

The other work I selected is a poem entitled "All This and More", which is also written by Mary Karr.

The link for the entire poem is as follows:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171882

A specific excerpt of this poem is as follows:

"So your head became a tv hull,

a gargoyle mirror. Your doppelganger   

sloppy at the mouth

and swollen at the joints   

enacted your days in sinuous   

slow motion, your lines delivered

with a mocking sneer. Sometimes   

the frame froze, reversed, began   

again: the red eyes of a friend

you cursed, your girl child cowered   

behind the drapes, parents alive again   

and puzzled by this new form. That’s why

you clawed your way back to this life."

Obviously, an extremely large connection between "All This and More" and The Liars' Club is that they were both written by Mary Karr. In addition to penning novels and memoirs, Mary Karr is a poet and essayist. I thought it would be interesting to compare The Liars' Club, in which she shares a great deal of her life in an explicit manner, to a poem she wrote, in which she uses a significant amount of figurative language and symbolism to express her thoughts and ideas.

The tone of "All This and More" is surprisingly similar to that of The Liars' Club. Admittedly, Mary Karr uses few figurative symbols in her prose writing. However, both this poem and The Liars' Club are filled with examples of similes, metaphors, and imagery. The mood of each respective work is, however, vastly different. The mood of "All This and More" is dark and disturbing, while still deeply philosophical. The Liars' Club is, at base, the story of a family, and while it certainly contains its fair share of troubling moments, the overall focus is the analysis of the various family relationships. Although it is filled with heavily philosophical thoughts and inner ruminations on the part of Karr, these are expressed in an analytical tone with her ideas explicitly stated. In "All This and More", because it is a poem, symbolism is used heavily to communicate concepts, which is a significant difference between the two literary works.

I personally was interested in this poem because it is a window into the more creative and interpretive side of Mary Karr. After reading a memoir, I often feel somewhat strange knowing such personal details of a virtual strangers life. With this memoir, I feel as though I know the author, not because of the information Karr shared but because I became accustomed to her writer's voice and style of thinking. However, my personal perception of Mary Karr is entirely limited, as it is based on only one of her literary works, and no in-person contact whatsoever. For me, it was fascinating to read a work by Mary Karr that is of an entirely different genre and tone. This added a new and different shade to my perception of Mary Karr.