Poetic License

The poem I chose is Riddance by Rae Armantrout. 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/150947/riddance

This poem is talking about a pattern in a relationship, the pattern is recognizing a problem and fixing it. The lines “Ok, we’ve rendered the rendition how often?”, seems to imply that there are countless problems that they keep going over. The word “weather” used in this poem seems to be the process that happens after the problem is brought up. The lines, “Shall we talk about the weather worsening four times faster than expected” shows that the pattern is getting worse. These lines can also suggest that the people in this relationship have run out of things to talk about and have resorted to small talk, since talking about the weather is usually considered small talk. Following the lines about the weather worsening are the lines, “until the joy of pattern recognition kicks in?”. These lines imply that the only thing left in the relationship is the process of the “weather” or “fixing” their problems. The final lines, “until the crest of the next ridge is what remains of division”, implies that the next problem can easily bring them apart.

The speaker in this poem is someone in the relationship that has recognized the truth to the pattern they are going through. The use of diction in the poem makes it sound like a bad storm, but the connotation of the words shows that the writer is actually talking about a relationship. The word “weather” is used as a metaphor for the process of fixing or working through problems.