My first workshop

Felia Olave
October 15, 2008
Workshop: She sleeps while holding her bear every night
By: Jennifer

It’s written as a poem, but told as a short story. I think this poem/short story is about losing someone you love and having one thing that connects you to them. I can imagine the setting somewhere in the country, in an old worn down house. Also with lots of acres of land. The poem/ short story is very sad; it talks about death, but gives a happy gesture. A line that really speaks to me is “surrounded by strangers that she will soon play dominoes with up in the sky”. This one line probably relates to back in the days when the mother used to play dominoes when the child was younger, and she can imagine her mother in heaven playing dominoes with the strangers that the mother will soon come to know. I noticed that the poem/ short story is centered on religion. More than three occasions where the author relates something back to the Christian religion, rather it is a picture of the last supper hanging up on the wall or having the bible in her hand while her mother was in the hospital. The poem/ short story was also a little bit confusing, the author used the pronoun she and her some many times that I didn’t who she was talking about. The way it is laid out makes it unsmooth. Every other line has an end-dent, and the other lines start at the margin. As the audience to this poem/ short story; I like it. It has an emotional connection to it that brings me in deeper and deeper. I feel like I can relate to what the author is feeling.