In their text The Making of a Poem, Mark Boland and Eavan Strand describe the elegy form as a method of expressing “cultural grief.” While the elegy’s original design may have been to voice a community’s mourning, it has evolved from the public lament into an expression of individual sorrow. As an example of the elegy, Paula Meehan’s “Child Burial” contains a personal sadness not intended for public consumption, but rather a private communion.
The Beginning of “Child Burial”
Meehan’s elegy begins “Your coffin looked unreal, / fancy as a wedding cake.” The initial use of “your” indicates this verse is a private conversation between the narrator/ mother and the child she has lost. The wedding cake imagery creates a vision of celebration, new life and renewal. These are complete opposites to the task she has endured in the loss of her child, and Meehan’s use of this opening vision establishes the speaker’s sense of incredulity and shock.
The narrator continues her private conversation, detailing the clothes she chose for the burial, recognizing the familiar scent of her child, and remembering events passed. Her words evoke a sense of comfort, as she describes the “blue cotton trousers” and the “gansy of handspun wool, / warm and fleecy.” Then abruptly, the horrific reason for these soothing choices resurfaces, and the mother declares “it is / so cold down in the dark.”
Images and Memories
Meehan’s first five stanzas are reminiscent of a quiet conversation, full of soft images, gentle memories and lingering thoughts. As the sixth stanza begins, a change of tone occurs. The mother becomes filled with anger and rage. So overcome, she finds no solace in the time she had with her son. Nor does she see comfort in her child joining the grace of an all mighty savior. Instead, she wishes to have never experienced the joy of her child’s life, and angrily declares “I would spin / time back, take you again / within my womb …I’d cancel the love feast / the hot night of your making.”
However, the mother reveals that it is not the life she wishes to erase, but the method of her child’s death. While this elegy does not provide any information on the circumstances of death, the narrator expresses her desire to take control of the situation. Meehan’s final two stanzas affirm, “I would travel alone / to a quiet mossy place, / you would spill from me into the earth / drop by bright red drop.”
Sorrow and Callousness
Upon first reading, the reader may find this poem to be a contradiction of sorrow and callousness. Although Meehan’s introductory stanzas expressed the care taken in the selection of the child’s clothes, they did not convey a sense of appreciation for what was, or express any sentiments of love and longing.
However, the speaker’s grief becomes so intense and consuming that it creates an undeniable sense of pain, anger, and agony. This elegy was not designed for consolation, but rather an outlet of personal suffering. Her words are simple, yet direct. The images are those of the everyday world, surrounding each of us in the familiar feeling of family. And while the elegy speaks to an audience, the speaker’s pain is her own.
Sources
The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. Edited by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2000).
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