Snapping Beans Grandmother

The poem “Snapping Beans” by Lisa Parker reminds me of the relationship I had with my grandmother. Although I lost her at a fairly young age I still had a very close relationship to her and could image this conversation between us. The author is from Appalachia, same as my parents and grandparents. The beliefs that this grandmother seems to have, old-fashioned, conservative, very religious, are the same that me grandmother had. 

In this poem the author uses a comforting tone. Since she knows that her grandmother wouldn’t believe what she would hear if the granddaughter told her the truth, she babies her answer. The author also uses a lot of farm words such as “cornstalks”, “evening star”, and “porchfront” to paint a very clear countryside picture. She also uses slang to show the way her grandmother would have talked as seen in “a-goin”. The imagery is painted in the description of the backdrop. However, there aren’t many devices used. There is no rhyme scheme and doesn’t seem to be much reason between her division of the lines except for in special cases like “I wanted to tell her” and “ I said, School is fine.” on lines of their own to draw attention to them. I think the theme of this paper is that things that make you happy don’t necessarily make help others. Since this college experience has made her happy and awoken her eyes but it would kill her grandmother to hear about it.