Sorrow Is Not My Name

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2011

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

The Vulture

The vulture in “Sorrow Is Not My Name” represents death and mortality, and the ways in which they offer the viewer a window into joy and beauty. Gay carefully crafts the image:

Look,

just this morning a vulture

nodded his red, grizzled head at me,

and I looked at him, admiring

the sickle of his beak (Lines 3-7).

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The primary image of the poem, the vulture encapsulates the speaker’s complicated view of mortality as inevitable, but capable of drawing attention to moments of aesthetic pleasure. The vulture, a creature that feeds on dead animals, is red and grizzled, and the speaker sees a sickle in the shape of his beak, alluding to another image of death and violence: the Grim Reaper, the symbolic personification of death. Despite this, the speaker is full of admiration for the natural beauty of the vulture, and when the bird flies away, Gay anthropomorphizes it by describing its plumage as a “good suit of feathers” (Line 9)—the vulture is dressed in formalwear to mark the occasion of being the speaker’s moment of joy. The speaker reasserts his feelings of admiration for the vulture when he describes the “naturally occurring sweet things” (Line 13) in the following lines, connecting the vulture to his a wide understanding of beauty within the natural world.

The Skeleton

The skeleton, an obvious representation of death, violence, and mortality, enters the poem toward the end, after the long list of “sweet things” (Line 13), and after the speaker has implored the reader to “Think of that” (Line 17). Gay purposefully intertwines lush images of sweet things like persimmon and agave with images like the skeleton and vulture, creating a complicated texture that underscores the notion that joy must be understood in context of what is difficult, or mortal, or edged with suffering. Like Wallace Stevens’s poem “Sunday Morning,” and its repeated refrain “Death is the mother of beauty” (Stevens, Wallace. “Sunday Morning.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation), Gay’s poem does not shy away from the fact that writing about joy and beauty must acknowledge its opposite.

The Niece

The niece in the final lines of “Sorrow Is Not My Name” expands Gay’s philosophy of joy and beauty, suggesting that the best and most important of the “naturally occurring sweet things” (Line 13) are those that enhance human connection. In the final movement of the poem, after the speaker once more acknowledges the darker presence of death, he shifts back to joy, again forcing the reader to look away from the darkness that awaits and instead to “look; my niece is running through a field / calling my name” (Lines 20-21). The niece represents communion with other humans, and the sense of liberation that comes with childhood—her running echoes the flight of the vulture, except she is running toward the speaker rather than away from him; her freedom is more meaningful because it occurs in the context of family love. Notably, the niece calls the speaker’s name, cementing the poem’s claim of the powerful nature of language and words to create joy and meaning.