Prof. Richard Bozorth
The Memories in That Summer
In Elizabeth Alexander’s poem “Nineteen”, she shares her summer memories in Culpepper when she was nineteen with readers. There are three stanzas in this poem, and Alexander uses a lot of words in different ways, like the colors, smelling, and touching, to describe and show the details of her summer experience in every stanza, and those details can help readers constitute different pictures in their minds and it also makes her memories in that summer trip become extremely vivid. In Alexander’s story, we can see that she went through lots of things during that summer, and these things helped her know about the outside world. I believe when she recalls those memories, she is kind of regretting the choices that she made in that summer. But the memory is still very important to her, because it helps make her get strong and mature.
At the beginning of the first stanza, Alexander uses the word “white” to indicate that her early life was very simple and unsophisticated, because white is a symbol of purity and blank. More specifically, white implies that before this summer, she may not see a lot of things and experience much in her own town and she may not have any love experiences either, so she was still a virgin before that summer; on the other hand, white can also show that Alexander thinks her trip in Culpepper will be simple and beautiful. I wonder if Alexander’s parents set many strict
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rules on her, and that’s the reason why she would like to run away from her hometown and spend her summer in an unfamiliar place. Then Alexander talks about a Vietnam veteran in this stanza. We can tell Alexander wants to try new things to open her mind and become mature, especially when she met that married older man who has rich life experiences. Although Alexander has already been nineteen years old, she still describes herself “was the baby, drinking rum and Coke” But for the man, she thinks he is mature, but we can also start to feel that her memories about this man are not good, because she describes the man “smoked reefer they’d stolen from the campers.” She also knows that the man lied to her when she writes, “an older man who didn’t tell me he was married.” Later, Alexander writes “black and dusty, with a garbage bag of dirty clothes.” Here are some strong comparisons with the beginning part, like from white to black, and from fancy food to dirty clothes. All these comparisons show that Alexander has never experienced those, although she has a strong curiosity about the outside world, she finds that her living condition gets worse and her trip is not wonderful as she expected.
In the second stanza, Alexander writes more stories about that Vietnam man. At first, she mentions her age is nineteen and it’s her first time to be away from home again. I feel that she wants to emphasize that she is still young and does not know about much, and she also wants to provide an explanation to readers why she would be with that man and do things with him. Then, Alexander uses lots of details to describe this man, like his scent, his appearance, and his tone of talking. Alexander writes, “and like a fool I’d smile.” She chooses the word “fool” because on the one hand, she is really naive and deeply believes the man can make her happy. But on the other
3 hand, she thinks it is a bad decision for her when she looks back, so she uses word “fool” to describe herself. Besides, we can also feel her strong regret from this word. In addition, that man was not only married, but also had a son. We can tell Alexander is very shocked about that, because she says “I never imagined a mother.” Before knowing the truth, Alexander may want to live with the man forever, but when she knew that he had a son, she is very disappointed because it destroys her fantasy dream. Form this stanza, we can know that this man also teaches Alexander many bad things. For instance, he tells Alexander how to smoke marijuana, “how to crush it.” All those images let readers realize that Alexander meets a bad man and he also creates a lot of negative effects on Alexander when she just starts to step into the society. From the description about that man, we can tell Alexander is not satisfied with her first summer trip and she even regrets it a lot.
In the last stanza, we can see that Alexander tries to know about that man and to learn some experiences from him because she asks a lot of questions about Vietnam. However, it is obvious that the man doesn’t want to talk about his experience and he always avoids the topic about Vietnam, because all he said to Alexander is “He listened to a lot of Marvin Gaye,” From the whole poem, we can find that this man just wants to use marijuana, alcohol, and women to escape his terrible memories in Vietnam. Alexander starts to realize she has made a bad decision to be with this guy and she wants to get back into her usual routine when she writes, “I’d creep to my cot” and “I’d eat that white food.” Alexander learns a lesson from this trip. She doesn’t want to keep going, and all she wants is just to go back to her previous life, and we can tell her determination when she writes “nothing could be ruined in one stroke.” Moreover, in the last few sentences, Alexander describes the rain which makes the man
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recall the bad memories in Vietnam. She doesn’t describe her saying and thinking in details, but the only thing she describes is the man says, “the rain sounded just like that,” It’s a very vivid image, I believe at that moment, she is so disappointed and she asks herself whether the rain and the storm really sounds like the war which makes him become so indifferent and bland. The rain and the storm helps Alexander start to have different understandings about this man, because it seems to help wash Alexander’s heart and let her finally to see that the man is not her true love and they are in totally different worlds.
In general, we can feel Alexander’s strong regret about what she did in her nineteen from the whole poem. But luckily, we can also feel that she becomes more and more mature from the first stanza to the last stanza, because she doesn’t follow the man’s idea and she finally knows what she really wants and belongs. And she finally realizes that this man is not her destiny and they are not in the same world at all. The first summer away from home is not a beautiful memory for her, but it is still precious, because Alexander learns a lesson and gets experience from this trip. The summer when she was nineteen makes her become much more stronger than before and she finally grows up after this summer.