“Rhode Island Swans” is a poem that transports you back to one of the speaker’s childhood memories through the eyes of her adult self. Describing the scene, “as it was in 1989, / and know[ing] the fine tremor of disorder,” the speaker reflects on feeding popcorn to swans at the park with her mother and brother; however, it’s not as blissful as it sounds. This poem is heavy with disorder, danger, wrath, and indifference.
It begins with: “Golden is the cry emerging. They’ve got me between their beaks / Again.” We as readers automatically question a few things: Why is the cry golden, and is it emerging from the speaker or the Rhode Island swans? In what way is the speaker between their beaks? The poem unfolds from this into images of falling leaves mistaken for swarming bats, and then into the scene of the swans being fed by the family. But the swan feeding scene is deceptively calm.
The description of the swans as, “cruel birds that would strike, defending / Their own beauty,” transforms the image into an uneasy representation of the family. Beauty and aggression linger in every part of this poem. Typically, we romanticize swans as alluring creatures, and we romanticize past memories and build them up to be something that they never truly were. However, memories can change over time, and swans can be angry and territorial.
I find it fascinating that the speaker admits these swans haunt her in dreams from “feathered enclosures,” in the present as she reflects on this memory. When she sees swan boats in the city, the memory of the swans from Rhode Island resurfaces. “Wrath, they tell me. Power.” In this moment, the swans take on weight beyond the childhood scene itself, and represent the instability of power that the younger version of the speaker might not have recognized at that time.
This poem articulates meanings from a memory that can only be cultivated through distance and the passage of time. “I am the cry emerging and the hand covering my mouth,” she says, recognizing the power and fear she now carries with her.
––Tyler McDonald, Mid-American Review