Uniformity Through Sonnets

Ellen Bryant Voigt writes about the 1918 Influenza Epidemic in her book of poetry, Kyrie. In Kyrie, Voigt attempts to find meaning and or a place of intersection between the wildly different demographics of people who lived through it, or were killed during it.

I found it very interesting that Voigt employed the form of sonnets to tell the story of twenty five million dead people. Sonnet form is arguable the most well known form of poetry written, and it is interesting that Voigt employs such an ancient form, already deeply instilled with other meanings, for telling a story that Voigt is so committed to. However, Voigt uses the sonnet form well, and strays away from Shakespeare by writing all of her sonnets in blank verse, and often making unusual line breaks.

To me, the book was about acceptance. It is not trying to convey how it feels to have influenza, but rather, in the face of certain death, how one responds. In the battle of fate versus free will, influenza is a guarantor of fate. Once symptoms show up, there is nothing the doctor can do, and many people died. Obviously, not even the majority of the infected people died, however it was deadly that it appeared that way. Kyrie helps people find acceptance in such a world.

The "Prologue" communicated this the best:

After the first year, weeds and scrub;
after five, juniper and birch
alders filling in among the briars;
ten more years, maples rise and thicken;
forty years, the birches crowded out,
a new world swarms on the floor of the hardwood forest.
And who can tell us where there was an orchard,
where a swing, where the smokehouse stood?

This is a poem about the passage of time, and suggests that time heals everything. Or, if it does not heal, at least it will help forget. This is perhaps the best way to approach death: acceptance. Because birth and death are things that everybody has in common, yet people are always surprised when the end comes. I just love how this poem sounds. It is peaceful. The rhythm begins slow and short, and builds a little, like quickening of waves during a storm, until it ends with the question: who can tell us? I do no think it is rhetorical. Perhaps, questions are the only things can bring acceptance.