Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 3K views

    David Malouf: Revolving Days

    Uploaded by

    Saptadip
    The poem reflects on a past love that the speaker calls a "mistake." He remembers falling deeply in love and the feelings that overwhelmed him. He recalls buying colorful new shirts to represent his new identity as a lover. Though the relationship is over, the memories and feelings still come back to him at times. He thinks of who his former lover may be with now. While he will not reappear or cause her discomfort, his heart remains deeply affected by the love they once shared. The poem uses apostrophe and symbolism to convey how difficult it is to fully move on from lost love.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    David Malouf: Revolving Days

    Uploaded by

    Saptadip
    3K views2 pages
    The poem reflects on a past love that the speaker calls a "mistake." He remembers falling deeply in love and the feelings that overwhelmed him. He recalls buying colorful new shirts to represent his new identity as a lover. Though the relationship is over, the memories and feelings still come back to him at times. He thinks of who his former lover may be with now. While he will not reappear or cause her discomfort, his heart remains deeply affected by the love they once shared. The poem uses apostrophe and symbolism to convey how difficult it is to fully move on from lost love.

    Original Title

    20200406212040 (1)

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    The poem reflects on a past love that the speaker calls a "mistake." He remembers falling deeply in love and the feelings that overwhelmed him. He recalls buying colorful new shirts to represent his new identity as a lover. Though the relationship is over, the memories and feelings still come back to him at times. He thinks of who his former lover may be with now. While he will not reappear or cause her discomfort, his heart remains deeply affected by the love they once shared. The poem uses apostrophe and symbolism to convey how difficult it is to fully move on from lost love.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    3K views2 pages

    David Malouf: Revolving Days

    Uploaded by

    Saptadip
    The poem reflects on a past love that the speaker calls a "mistake." He remembers falling deeply in love and the feelings that overwhelmed him. He recalls buying colorful new shirts to represent his new identity as a lover. Though the relationship is over, the memories and feelings still come back to him at times. He thinks of who his former lover may be with now. While he will not reappear or cause her discomfort, his heart remains deeply affected by the love they once shared. The poem uses apostrophe and symbolism to convey how difficult it is to fully move on from lost love.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 2

    Revolving Days

    David Malouf
    That year I had nowhere to go, I fell in love — a mistake
    of course, but it lasted and has lasted.
    The old tug at the heart, the grace unasked for, urgencies
    that boom under the pocket of a shirt. What I remember
    is the colour of the shirts. I’d bought them
    as an experiment in ways of seeing myself, hoping to catch
    in a window as I passed what I was to be
    in my new life as lover: one mint green, one
    pink, the third, called Ivy League, tan
    with darker stripes, my first button-down collar.
    We never write. But sometimes, knotting my tie
    at a mirror, one of those selves I had expected
    steps into the room. In the next room you
    are waiting (we have not yet taken back
    the life we promised to pour into each other’s mouths
    forever and for ever) while I choose between
    changes to surprise you.

    Revolving days. My heart


    in my mouth again, I’m writing this for you, wherever
    you are, whoever is staring into your blue eyes. It is me,
    I’m still here. No, don’t worry, I won’t appear out of
    that old time to discomfort you. And no, at this
    distance, I’m not holding my breath for a reply.

    https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-summary-analysis-david-maloufs-
    revolving-days-544440

    In this poem, the speaker reflects on a time in his past when he fell in love. He calls it a
    "mistake / of course," but it seems as though the feeling has stayed with him nonetheless.
    He recalls the feelings he felt but also the colors of the shirts he purchased then, for his new
    life as a lover. He and his lover do not stay in touch. However, sometimes he feels like he
    tried to feel then, like one of the new selves in the new shirts, and he feels as though he is
    right back there in the relationship again. The time passes and days go by, but the speaker
    still feels that his "heart / [is] in [his] mouth again." His feelings remain unchanged, then,
    and he considers who she might be involved with now. In the end, however, he assures her
    that he will not reappear in her life and doesn't mean to cause her any discomfort; he
    expects nothing from her and does not expect to hear from her.

    "Revolving Days" uses apostrophe and symbolism to convey the idea that moving on from
    lost love can be incredibly difficult and even impossible. Apostrophe is when the speaker
    addresses someone absent or dead as though they were there and could respond. Here, the
    poet's use of apostrophe helps to convey the speaker's sense of longing, of yearning, for the
    lover who has left him. Further, the color of the shirts he purchased during this
    relationship—"mint green, one / pink, the third, called Ivy League, tan / with darker stripes .
    . . "—seem to symbolize the new life he hoped he'd have as a lover. They are bright and
    clean and new, probably starched and crisp, one his "first button-down collar." The colorful
    brightness of those shirts, as well as the "blue eyes" of his lost love, are the only colors in
    the poem. Life seems as though it is, perhaps, figuratively colorless now for him.
    Symbolically, then, life is duller, less exciting, in the wake of this love.

    You might also like