Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods

In Paulo Bohince's Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods she uses poetry to put beautiful imagery to a rather depressing story of her life as a woman within an man's world. Many of her poems deal with loss. The gradual loss of her sick father in poems such as Longlegs, The Fatherless Room, and Cleaning My Father's House. I like the imagery in Longlegs where she says, "I look to its shadow on on the sheet, then to its body, a kernel, something to be crushed". I think that paints such an interesting picture as to how badly her Fathers state had deteriorated and also gives some insight into her emotional state, watching the most significant man in her life go from being strong and powerful to weak, helpless, and insignificant- "its", "something to be crushed". She also speaks of a loss of identity or self-worth, to the identities the men in her life created for her in poems such as Spirits at the Edge of Bayonet Woods and When I think of Love. I like the lines in the Spirit at the Edge of Bayonet Woods she writes, "Forgive us, Lord, we did not know them, humpbacked and ruined, crawling toward us wanting clean shirts, kisses, more children. Tell me, what was a woman's purpose in those woods?" And in When I think of Love when she says, "to this boy who left school at fourteen, who comes each summer wanting work, then stays, wanting my life, I believe." She also speaks of a loss of faith in the Gospel According to John. This poem really struck me, especially that last four stanzas I thought the imagery of the "wet rose" was beautiful and when she says, "tried to sit with that flower and feel as God must: the pleasure of His birds swollen with feathers, His birds bound to His sky, belonging to His kingdom of violence" the continuing theme of a loss of power or control over her life comes through so clear.