In Kevin Young’s poem “The Mission” we see a vivid memory of something that he once lived. The author uses imagery and metaphor to describe death and how it affected him in the past.
Young begins speaking of when he was younger, and lived “across the street from a home for funerals” (lines 2-3). The impact of having to live so near a place were dead people came. Young shows the differences of common neighborhoods with where he lived when he says, “children played tag out front, while the bodies snuck in the back” (18-20). We can see here some irony, for he speaks of “the bodies” as a secondary thing, while we learn that death is a primary thing, important in the lives of the people who lose a loved one. Here it’s portrayed as something “else” that happens while the kids play tag.
The author then begins to write about the funeral place, wondering things about it, remembering things about it. “I wondered who slept there” (38-39), again making reference to the dead who arrived every day, sleep meaning death. Young speaks of his experience with death, how his father died, “He kept everything but alive” (44-45). He then makes a statement that “sorrows not noun but verb” (46-48), he has felt sorrow therefore making it an action, a “verb”. The addition of this to the poem let us see that he did feel sorrow for his father’s death, but we learn later that it short, for “by doing right you do less of”(50-51).
“The Mission” by Kevin Young is a poem in which the author shows his view of death, and how it affects the ones who remain alive. He speaks of “sorrow” when death approaches him.
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