Poetry Analysis: Bringing My Son to the Police Station to Be Fingerprinted

Poetry Analysis: Bringing My Son to the Police Station to be Fingerprinted

The mechanisms by which human beings cope are very different from person to person. These mechanisms, however, decide if someone will be a nervous wreck or if they'll be calm in collected. In "Bringing My Son to the Police Station to be Fingerprinted" by Shoshauna Shy, the author uses an adverse array of images to convey a distracted tone that reveals the message that distractions cannot keep you from the harsh truth of reality.

In this work by Shoshauna Shy the speaker is a preoccupied mother who, as the title implies is bringing her son to the police station to be fingerprinted. She is obviously very distracted as throughout the poem she is describing her visual appearance, specifically her clothing. The speaker carries a very distracted tone all throughout, constantly trying to notice the small insignificant things as opposed to the more important matters at hand; she does so by describing her garb down to the minor detail through the use of detailed imagery. The reason why the speaker would decide to notice the small insignificant matters would be to distract herself from the harsh truth that her current predicament presents. The fact that her son is being brought into the police station would cause her, as his mother, to instantly attempt to cope with the emotions brought on by such an event so distraction from the event would bring her momentary relief.

The use of imagery in the poem allows the reader to visualize the keen attention to detail that the speaker has decided to have towards her clothing and specifically the idea behind this attention to detail. Beginning in line 10 the speakers says "the cool yellow of this blouse clashes with the buttermilk heather in my skirt which makes me slightly queasy," this reveals that even the safe haven which the author was seeking in her clothing cannot distract her from the truth at hand. The image the speaker creates of a woman worried about the clashing colors of her clothing shows that the speaker cannot truly be at peace in the current moment, her attempted escape into the kingdom of her clothing brought uneasiness and thus her distractions are failing. This image serves as a contrast to that of the one created in lines 20-25 when the speaker says "then as we pass through Weapons Check it's reassuring to note how the yellows momentarily mesh and make an overall pleasing composite," this serves as the speaker's acknowledgement and acceptance of her current situation. It is in this quote that by rebuking her previous statement about her mismatched clothing that the speaker shows that she has accepted her fate and the fate of her son. This image was used to bring the speaker back to reality and to also allow the reader to truly visualize the gravity of the situation. The poem is no longer just about the