Facing It

There are many elements of internal trauma in this poem. For the most part, the speaker is having an internal monologue by speaking to themself and trying to make sense of everything they are seeing in the present reconciled against the horrors of the past. The tone is firm, controlled, and reassuring, as if the speaker is trying to give themself a pep talk to stay focused and hold it together. This is evident in lines 3-4: “I said I wouldn't/ dammit: No tears.” The internal voice continues to frankly and directly speak from the first-person perspective about what they are feeling and thinking.

From the beginning of the poem, the speaker finds themself becoming a part of the wall and loses themself in order to discover themself again in the reflection: “My black face fades,/ hiding inside the black granite” (lines 1-2). This happens again later again: “I'm stone. I'm flesh” (line 5). These moments of blending the speaker’s body into the wall’s surface serve to enforce how there is no separation from this history, from this memory, and how the body inhabits the psychological and emotional space the wall represents. Ultimately, the speaker both does and does not see themself in the way they imagine, and their sense of reality has been warped by the traumatic event.

The first half of the poem seems to focus on the speaker’s internal thoughts and private feelings, while the second half of the poem shifts towards observing what’s around them, and the reactions and memories of others. The fact that the poem is written as one block of verse and is uninterrupted without stanza breaks symbolizes the way the wall is immovably placed in front of the speaker as a seemingly unending list of names and images they both literally and metaphorically must face.