Response to Joyce Sutphen

9/17/13

Response to Joyce Sutphen’s Poems

In response to the Joyce Sutphen’s poems I read, she writes many of  her poems about how living on the farm shaped her. In the poem “Breakfast” her father taught her how to eat breakfast “My father taught me how to eat breakfast those mornings when it was my turn to milk the  cows…Didn’t  talk much… that’s how we started up the day” (The Writer's Almanac: Joyce Sutphen). I’d like to think that because she grew up on a farm that she writes about the memories of her father not saying much besides how good the strawberries were. She continues to write about the farm in her poem “Apple Season”: “The kitchen is sweet with the smell of apples… My mother and my grandmother are running the apple brigade” (The Writer's Almanac: Joyce Sutphen).  I like how she talks about the smell of apples in the air when her mother and her grandmother are making pies, apple crisps, and etc… I really like the way she writes about her mom and her grandmother running the apple brigade as if they’re on a mission to create the best apple pies ever. The poem’s Joyce writes are easy to relate to because almost everyone has experienced the smell of apples filling the room. Joyce Sutphen really re-iterates the feeling of happiness in her poem “Happiness”: “Pure happiness, simple as strawberries and cream in a saucer” (The Writer's Almanac: Joyce Sutphen). She comes back to her childhood happiness at the farm where she had a strawberry farm. To conclude Joyce Sutphen must have a broad audience range because her poems welcome everyone.