“Poets often use unusual images that force us to think in new ways about familiar things”
The poem “Marrysong” by Dennis Scott is about a man who is desperate to understand his wife as he struggles to predict her feelings and reactions. Scott uses a variety of ways including his method of unusual comparisons to create the unusual image of how this ordinary woman’s mind seems to work. This poem makes us think of how a normal relationship or marriage can be something so complex with many hardships coming with it.
Having the whole poem being like an extended metaphor as the poet first describes this woman’s mind as “territory” we straight away get the idea that this is a man’s view on a woman’s mind, thinking it as something being protected and impenetrable. Further into the poem many references are continuously made about the woman’s mind as being like a “new country” an area unknown, yet to be explored and something to be part of “geography” (something that will be studied). It is described that this man as having “charted” her but the “roads disappeared. The map was never true”. This gives us the unusual image of his wife’s mind being pathless furthermore much more complex than we would think; making it seem like bravery is needed to explore this completely unknown yet natural creation.
