There is a distinct mood change in the poem in the third stanza, going from the last sentence in the second stanza, ’She stank of deceit.’ To the first sentence in the third stanza, ’I loved her.’ These are both used to great effect in the poem, not only because they have very different messages, one talks of hate the other of love, but they are both very short sentences, this goes hand-in-hand with the massive contrast of words to create a more tense feeling within the poem.
A particular sentence that I feel is quite significant is in the first stanza, ‘She turned away. I stabbed.’ I feel it is significant because both sentences are used for effect, they come after one very long sentence that went over two lines and I think could be a metaphor for how quickly and sudden the movement was for the man. It also has a double meaning, in its most literal form, the sentences mean that she turned away from him, and so he stabbed her, but I also think it could mean that she turned away from him in the sense that she left him for another man, and that, ‘Stabbed in the back’ is to be betrayed by someone, I think the man feels betrayed by his wife and so in a sense she stabbed him in the back, so he physically took a knife and stabbed her.
I also think that the title can be commented on quite a lot, after reading the poem, the reason behind calling it, ‘Human Interest’ is quite hard to decipher but I think it could be linked to both the man and the woman in this poem, the man because of his feelings throughout the poem he goes through three main emotions, anger, sadness and finally regret. I think that the title is so named because all of his emotions are very human and that he couldn’t really stop himself being angry at his wife. He title could also relate to his wife as the, ‘Interest’ part of the poem, I think that she couldn’t stop herself becoming interested in another man and so ultimately had an affair with him.
I quite like this poem as it has lots of hidden meanings and words used with very good effect. I particularly like the amount of slang there is in the poem, more than is usual but that it conveys the man’s character and his feelings very well. I like how the short sentences are used and how it contributes to the tense feel of the poem.
What I like the most about the poem is that each stanza is a different stage of him coping with what he has done, firstly he states the facts, then he feels anger towards his wife for making him do it in the first place, then he feels sadness as he comes to terms with what he did then finally regret as he realised the extent of his actions and how he wished he never did it in the first place.
