These Little Things - PR#3

                                                                These Little Things

       "Little Things" by Sharon Olds makes me appreciate the smaller things in life, as it leads to the bigger things. The poem starts off with Olds giving a vivid image of the speaker cleaning up her daughter's mess after she goes to camp, "After she's gone to camp, in the early  / evening, I clear our girl's breakfast dishes from the rosewood table" (1-3). The speaker says "our" (2) instead of my because the speaker is speaking to their significant other. The speaker finds a pool of sugary maple syrup and it instantly makes them think about their father. This is when the meaning shift occurs in the poem, "As if I could read it, this raised dot of / amber sugar, and this time, when I think of my father," (8-9).

    This poem is a very detailed poem. I like how Olds uses diction to describe how things are in the poem. She uses words like "Vulcan-blood red" (10) to describe the color of the drink that he had in his glass. She also used these words to put an image in my head. Olds uses similie to make the poem relatable. Comparing a peeling sunburn to the peeling of an insect's wings (18-19), makes the poem more relatable to me. The poem ends with a great message - little things complete the big picture.