Loss is something that humans have experienced across time and in many different ways. It can relate to the loss of homes, countries and independence through war or it can relate the loss of a loved one through death, or a partner through a divorce. Queen Elizabeth I in her poem “When I Was Fair and Young” looks back on her youth and beauty now she has lost it, and recollects on her pride and her regrets about squandering what she had. Anne Bradstreet’s “Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666” describes her thoughts and feelings at the loss of her house and her possessions, and her ability to recover through religion. Gwendolyn Brooks focuses on the loss of dreams in “kitchenette building” . Each of these poets focuses on a different form of loss, some that are recognisable to the reader and some we can only empathise with. Although each is affected by time, overall, even as readers now these poems of loss evoke our own feelings regarding the subject.
It is believed that Queen Elizabeth I wrote “When I Was Fair and Young” in 1585 when she was 52 years old and had been reigning queen for almost thirty years. She had already almost died of smallpox at this point, dealt with an assassination attempt and was just beginning the War with Spain. In Parliament, marriage was already an issue of contention, as she would not marry and would not name her heir. This became particularly prominent after her struggles with smallpox. However, Queen Elizabeth I did not bow to their wishes. In a Parliamentary speech in 1559, she concluded her speech with "and in the end, this shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin." However, in “When I Was Fair and Young” this attitude that she wanted to die a celibate queen cannot be seen. The Queen was supposedly in love with her French suitor François of Valois, Duke of Alençon when the poem was written, as stated in the Rawlinson manuscript, which may be why she writes about the loss of her beauty as well as the loss of her lover as her beauty is what entices her lovers. The poem is written in four quatrains, made up of two couplets. It is a simple structure and moves at a very slow pace, forcing the reader to fully reflect on the narrator’s pain. The use of “was” both in the title and the first line highlight immediately that the narrator will be focusing on what has been lost- her favour and grace and beauty. Throughout the poem, Queen Elizabeth I ends each of the four stanzas with the line the narrator (assumed to be her) told each man who “sought their mistress for to be” (line 2); the narrator tells them to “Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more.” (line 4, 8, 12 and 16). However, the third and fourth stanza discuss that this was an error as Cupid, “that proud victorious boy” (line 9) calls the narrator coy and explains that he will “pluck your plumes” (line 11) and rid her of her pride that sent her admirers away. The fourth stanza is the true demonstration of loss in the poem as the narrator reflects that “such change grew in my breast” (line 13). The narrator cannot rest for the pain of having lost and refused so many suitors, particularly the Duke and she repents that she ever told the men to seek some other woman. This poem is a drastic change from the Queen we see in her speeches to Parliament, though a second speech she made in 1563 shows her recognising that celibacy is "not meet for a prince.” When the Duke visited in 1579, the match was strongly considered by Queen Elizabeth I. A letter from the time has the Queen explain that she is “one who will never have a thought not dedicated to your honour”. She refers to him as her frog in their correspondences together and there does appear to be some genuine sadness that came with her abandonment of their courting in 1581. This poem could be a reflection of her sadness at the loss of the Duke. However, it is also possible that the poem wasn’t written by Queen Elizabeth I anyway. In this case, the loss in the poem could have been written from the point of view of someone who was angry at the Queen’s lack of marriage, and believed it was due to her pride. They wanted the Queen to feel a sense of loss in regard to marriage and children as this would perhaps encourage the naming of an heir. This would also explain why the poem is such a drastic turn from the Queen we see in her speeches.
Anne Bradstreet’s poem regarding her loss is very different from Queen Elizabeth I. Bradstreet’s poem “Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666” is quite self-explanatory in that it follows her thoughts after the loss of her house, as well as demonstrating how she overcame it. Anne and her husband Simon Bradstreet had emigrated to America in 1630 and lived in a Puritan colony. In 1666, the family of twelve (Anne’s parents, her husband, and their eight children included) were living in the Old Centre of North Andover, Massachusetts when their house did burn down, leaving them homeless and with few belongings. The narrative lyric poem is again a simple one made up of rhyming couplets allowing the reader to focus clearly on the narrator’s thoughts. The poem begins with the narrator in bed when she is “wakened [by] thund’ring noise” (line 3) to shout of there being a fire, something she says “Let no man know” (line 6). Bradstreet’s Puritan ideas come out almost immediately as “to my God my heart did cry / To strengthen me in my distress” (line 8 and 9). Immediately we can feel the narrator’s loss through the beg for help. As the minister John Dod said, “The Wiues dutie is to keepe the house,” and in this moment, the narrator has failed at this. The narrator eventually accepts that as she is God’s, “It was His own” (line 17) to take. Bradstreet adapts a quote from Job, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” , in line 14 as she “blest His name that gave and took”. Although she has lost everything, she feels this is just the way of the Lord. As Howe-Pinsker explains in her essay, the God of the Puritans was a harsh one as they “believed themselves to be the New Jews, being tested in the wilderness of a new world.” Although at this moment in the poem the narrator seems to have got over the loss quite quickly, Bradstreet explains that the narrator still has “sorrowing eyes” (line 21) and she describes all the things that the narrator sees and knows are now lost: “Here stood that trunk, and there that chest, / There lay that store I counted best. / My pleasant things in ashes lie.” (line 25, 26 and 27). Although this is close to becoming dangerously materialistic in a Puritan society, Bradstreet is able to use specific words which, although conveying her deep sense of loss, still appear to be modest. The chest is one that she counted best, no one else did. Although the objects are pleasant, they aren’t rich or perfect. The narrator then begins to have a conversation with the house which in itself demonstrates the importance of the house was the social aspects, as the narrator mourns the loss of a future where people would sit, hear pleasant tales and where there would be marriages and old stories told. Not only does the narrator mourn the loss of the physical, she also mourns the loss of the place in her memories and how it would have fitted into her the future of her life. Bradstreet describes the narrator’s recovery from the loss coming from God and clearly shows the ideals of the Puritan town she lived in. She chides herself for her sorrow as “all’s vanity” (line 36) and describes how she already has another house, and it is the one made by God and Jesus in heaven, “that mighty Architect” (line 44) who paid for it when Jesus died on the cross to forgive humanity’s sins. Bradstreet ends the poem directing herself “The world no longer let me love, / My hope and treasure lies above.” (line 53 and 54) as she dedicates herself to God. She is able to get over her sense of loss with the remembrance that heaven is waiting for her and will be a better, nicer home than the one she had before the fire. While Queen Elizabeth I’s poem gave the impression of feeling loss after being taught a moral lesson, Anne Bradstreet’s poem is the other way around and calms her feeling of loss by teaching herself a lesson.
Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem “kitchenette building” is a much more contemporary poem than the other two as it was written in 1945, but demonstrates a similar sense of loss as life, especially the life lead by black people in America in the 40s, is shown to get in the way of the dreams and hopes for the future. Brooks herself lived in a kitchenette building for much of her young married life. Hannah Brooks-Motl explains “They were cramped microcosms of the circumscribed lives endured by most African Americans at the time.” as existing houses and apartments were split into smaller units that different families would move into, and then share kitchens, bathrooms and more. Brooks herself wrote “I remember feeling bleak when I was taken to my honeymoon home, the kitchenette apartment in the Tyson on 43rd and South Park.” and this can clearly be seen in the poem. The poem opens with the depressing image of the people who live in kitchenette buildings: “We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan, / Grayed in, and gray.” (line 1 and 2) Brooks uses the plural “we” and the grey colouring to highlight how the people in these buildings are no longer individuals. They are “things” that blur in and out of each other due to being grouped together into a small space and the fact that the people are acted upon by time and circumstance, the dry hours and involuntary plans. The caesura in the middle of the line allows “Dream” (line 2) to be highlighted but also trapped amongst the grey that is the people and real life that is forced to be dealt with, “Like ‘rent’, ‘feeding a wife’, ‘satisfying a man’.” (line 3). Brooks describes dream as having a “giddy sound” (line 2). It is frivolous to have dreams, whereas real life is a “strong” sound. In the second stanza, the dream is just as frivolous and is described vaguely; it is “white and violet” and flutters and sings. The smells that are in the kitchenette building are much more assured and demonstrate the lives being lived. The dream is forced to fight with this life and Brooks highlights this through her use of rough language, with words like “fumes” (line 4), “fight” (line 5) and the “ripening” of the garbage (line 6). By stanza three, the dream is no longer mentioned and has lost the fight. The narrator, and no one else in the building, has the time to “let it begin” (line 10) as she has a life to lead that is shown in stanza four. Although they wonder, they wonder “not well! not for a minute!” (line 11) as she doesn’t have time- “Number Five is out of the bathroom now.” (line 12). The use of “Number Five”, like the first stanza, makes the person into a thing and demonstrates the kind of existence the narrator has in the building. She does not know the people she is living with and neither does anyone else. They are all just numbers to each other. Brooks ends the poem on the only hope the people in the kitchenette building have: “We think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it.” (line 13). It is the only dream that will come true. The poem throughout is one of loss, but also a resoluteness in that being the way things are, similarly to Bradstreet’s poem. While Bradstreet has God who has a plan, Brooks has life that cannot be changed for her.
Overall, the treatment of loss in poetry can clearly be seen in each of these poems and demonstrates that the emotion of loss doesn’t change over time. People in a variety of different places, times, and with different circumstances, feel the same emotion of loss and suffering, whether they are the Queen of England, a Puritan wife, or a struggling poet in a time of extreme racism. Although each woman outlines a different kind of loss that fits in with their world, each poem is connected in different ways by the same underlying emotion.