Reaction to February

I just finished reading the poem "February" by James Harms and I must say that I am a bit confused by the way he writes this. I envisioned it being a poem all about winter and the stereotypical things that one would expect: snow, cold weather, and misery. However, this poem being how creative in that it stays away from that definitely is the reason that I am deciding to write about it.

I love the beginning, where he starts off mentioning the things in the male’s pocket: the magnifying glass, poker chips, and the toy dinosaur. All of those things considered it led me to believe that the main character was probably a young teen and he probably was a bit “nerdy”. He was also probably up late because it says he has a partially unfinished sandwich which is what I picture when somebody has had a long night working and is just worn out.

February, is an enormously descriptive poem in that for everything that is mentioned seems to have some sort of description tied in with it. I was interested in the part where he mentioned the carnations being the color of plums because from what I remember in high school we had carnations that were pink, red, or white, but never a plum color. He then mentions how the socks that are being folded are blue and that every shirt has a hat to go with it. This reaffirms the aforementioned that nearly every fact has some sort of addition to it where it enhances the poem in my mind.

The end of the poem has me a bit torn as to whether I enjoyed the poem or not. I felt that the part with the postman ringing the door to let the family know he’s late is on one hand unrealistic because nobody would ever ring a doorbell to say they’re late with that type of job and I felt the postman was part of the poem that didn’t need to be mentioned and could have been left out and the poem probably would have been better off. Contrarily though, the last sentence or thought I felt was quite simple yet perfect. The phrase “something always moves” is so true to real life and makes me feel like I am part of the story and really made me think to myself “wow, that is so right because something is always moving, whether we are aware or not, it’s happening”, it’s funny how something that basic can make the reader think so much.

This poem is definitely cute and something I’d recommend to others. Plus the fact that he mentions WV means you gotta read it! Even though he talks about sunlight in February which I am yet to see here haha.

By: Perry Wertheimer