Joyce Sutphen

One of the first things I noticed about Joyce Sutphen's writing style is how each new line did not necessarily start with a capital letter unless it was a new sentence. It made reading the poem very relaxing, as if I were reading a story that just had various line breaks in it. Her poetry also describes experiences that are easy to relate to, but presents them in a way that makes them extraordinary, more beautiful and haunting. In her poem Death Becomes Me, she describes how death is always lingering, using this as a way to describe the intricate connections and forms of the human anatomy. She also connects math to the biology, all the while presenting it in an artistic form: "Death is counting my hair,/ figuring out the linear equation/ of my veins and arteries,/ the raised power /of a million capillaries, /acquainting himself with the /calculus of my heart". This summary of her body using mathematical metaphors combines the artistic and formulaic system that is the human anatomy, making the reader realize the amazing and mysterious side of something they don't often think about. In her poem Ever After, the way she breaks the lines into pairings of two lines with large gaps between the next couple emphasizes the separateness that she and her husband experienced in their divorce, yet also reinforces the idea of them together by using the lines in pairs.  She also masterfully writes a poem that is both narrative and from another perspective in her poem In Black. She describes her grandmother's life and hardships, starting at her grandmother's father's funeral and describing the loss of one of three children: "This was the grandmother who lost three of those/ thirteen, who hung a million baskets of wash,/ who peeled a million potatoes, and splattered/ her arms with the grease of constant cooking,". She gives a quick but descriptive summary of her grandmother's life, giving the reader a peek into her experience. She also introduces her grandmother at a funeral and ends the poem at her own funeral and the experience of Joyce's own mother in the same position as her grandmother once was. Throughout many of her poems, she writes of her divorce and of nature and of the human body and experience, and though all these things may seem average or cliche poem topics, her writing makes them beautiful and real and easy to connect with. Throughout her poetry her simple yet descriptive and haunting imagery, Joyce Sutphen leaves a deep impression on the mind of the reader.