Poetry #6

“Rites of Passage” by Sharon Olds

As the guests arrive at my son's party
they gather in the living room--
short men, men in first grade
with smooth jaws and chins.
Hands in pockets, they stand around
jostling, jockeying for place, small fights
breaking out and calming. One says to another 
How old are you? Six. I'm seven. So? 
They eye each other, seeing themselves
tiny in the other's pupils. They clear their
throats a lot, a room of small bankers,
they fold their arms and frown. I could beat you
up, a seven says to a six,
the dark cake, round and heavy as a
turret, behind them on the table. My son,
freckles like specks of nutmeg on his cheeks,
chest narrow as the balsa keel of a
model boat, long hands
cool and thin as the day they guided him
out of me, speaks up as a host
for the sake of the group.
We could easily kill a two-year-old,
he says in his clear voice. The other
men agree, they clear their throats
like Generals, they relax and get down to
playing war, celebrating my son's life. 

By initially looking at the title, I thought that Olds was playing on the word and meaning of "rites." This is one of the many few poems I was actually able to conceptualize and understand what is going on. There is a party or gathering on for the speaker’s son, although I do not know what is being celebrated. It sort of creeped me out how the speaker was talking about the boys in the party, because he or she seemed to be in a state of admiration for the six and seven year old boys. I paid attention to how the author put the dialogue in italics rather than quotations. Is this supposed to affect the form and bring some kind of significance to the poem. I also did not understand the importance of why the speaker referred to the young boys by their age rather than their actual names. Some of the vocabulary Olds used like “turrets” I did not know the meaning of, and had to do further research. After reading this poem for a second time, I realized that there was a greater meaning of the poem, something dealing with levels of power because of age. Of the few literary devices I actually did notice, the ones that stuck out the most as far symbolism and significance were “freckles like specks of nutmeg on his cheeks, chest narrow as the balsa keel of a model boat.” This further proves why I gained an uncomfortable feeling from the speaker’s tone, admirable and observant, to the subject of the poem, the boys.