Dan Week 1 - "Grief Calls Us to the Things of this World" by Sherman Alexie

 In his poem "Grief Calls Us to the Things of this World," Sherman Alexie describes a call with his mother through a hotel bathroom telephone and their shared conflicting emotions about Alexie's father that arise from the conversation. The tone of the poem shifts from a simple decision to call his father because "he's astounded by bathroom telephones" to a deep sense of self-reflection from both Alexie and his mother, asking themselves how they possibly could have forgotten that Alexie's father is dead. 

While Sherman and his mother's initial reactions are to feel guilty for their forgetfulness, their mistakes are actually a result of their undying love for their father/husband. When Sherman decides to phone his father, he isn't even thinking about the incredibly obvious fact that his dad is dead (rendering him unable to answer a phone call) because all he is thinking about at the moment is that he is using a bathroom phone and he needs to tell his father because they fascinate him. This is just like Sherman's mother's mistake, in the way that she was also going out of her way to be considerate of her husband. "[She had] made him a cup of instant coffee [that] morning and left it on the table," waiting for her husband to come take it, not remembering that he was dead, rendering him unable to pick up a cup of instant coffee. 

The title of this poem is very significant as well, as it is a play on the poem "Love Calls Us to the Things of this World" by famous poet Richard Wilbur. As one can see, the only difference in the title is the word "Love" being switched out for the word "Grief". This is extremely symbolic by Alexie because one would think of it as a minor change, just like anything which sounds almost the same after a tweak, but Alexie uses it as a universal theme. When one switches out love for grief in any aspect of life it completely changes that aspect. They are so different from one another, and by using "grief" instead of "love" Alexie establishes his eventual feelings at the end of the poem. The title of the poem is also somewhat ironic in the way that the entire poem is based on a phone call and the feelings that result from it, and the fact that the very title includes the words "Grief Calls Us". It's almost like the title is a foreshadow of the poem.       

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52923/grief-calls-us-to-the-things-of-this-world