Poem: The Key
Poet: Sarah Wetzel
Magazine: Stirring: A Literary Collection (Volume 14, Edition 9 : September 2012)
http://www.sundresspublications.com/stirring/archives/v14/e9/wetzels.htm
Blogger: A. Gould
I enjoyed reading “The Key” by Sarah Wetzel. The title of the poem is what made me read it; I wanted to find if there was a story behind this one key or what the key went to. The writer describes the key by telling the by going in to tell different stories of the past, such as who invented the first lock and key, and how they got out of the tied rope. There was no rhyming in the poem; I think that rhyming would have distracted the reader from the actual story of the keys. The author may have named the poem “The Key” to kind of unlock the untold past of the house. Wetzel ends the poem with a question of why the past owners leave the keys and why did she decides to keep the keys. I think that her ending the poem that way was sufficient because it’s like leaving place for the author to write another poem about the keys, another story of the keys, or possibly what the keys went to. The poem inspires me to find one small object or idea that people may push to the back of a closet or drawer and make it something important. In the poem there are very few periods, there are many commas. Wetzel’s decision to have more commas than periods made everything flow together. It was as if when she decided to tell the story of how the first lock and key was made in that house or on the land of that house. I also thought of it as with each comma there was another key because in the beginning of the poem Wetzel says there are 153 keys. I hope that there will be a continuation of this poem to tell what the keys went to so that it could possibly lead to another mystery about the house.