17 pages • 34 minutes read
Some Afternoons She Does Not Pick Up the Phone
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Themes
Mental and Physical Isolation
The poem's title, “Some Afternoons She Does Not Pick Up the Phone,” foreshadows the poem's key thematic concern of mental and physical isolation. Interestingly, the ringing phone itself does not feature in the poem but constitutes a voluble absence. The “she” of the title is perhaps the speaker referencing themselves in the third person, which they never do in the poem’s body. This implies that the speaker is looking at themselves in a dissociated fashion, as if the self is a subject. The distancing device furthers the poem’s mood of isolation and solitude.
The image of the phone being allowed to go unanswered evokes the idea of passivity. The “she” of the title is in the house but does not pick up the phone. She may be too tired, too overwhelmed to answer the phone, or she may simply not be inclined to answer. But the unanswered phone foreshadows another theme, that of stalled communication, which crops up later in the poem in the form of the letters that do not reach the speaker.
The letters do not reach the speaker possibly because the postal service is impacted by the long winter. On the other hand, the phone is deliberately left unanswered. This shows that the real, physical isolation and the speaker’s psychical solitude are merging into each other. When the speaker does try to make something stand on the ice, a metaphor for reaching out or being creative, the act is doomed because of the slipperiness of the ice.
The ice doesn’t let children stand on it, putting them in a perilous position. Children—described as “the little ones” (Line 7)—are symbols of wishes, hopes, and meaningful exchanges. The ice jeopardizes all these things. So absolute is the speaker’s feeling of isolation, even the strokes of writing they attempt are not allowed to exist; the speaker cannot even communicate with the page, let alone with people. The only reality that exists is the general ice, the never-ending winter, both of the landscape and of the mind.
The poem ends with the very refrain it began, indicating the walled-in, circular solitude of the speaker. The speaker hasn’t yet found a way out of this landscape; yet the fact that they assert “It is February” (Line 10) shows the situation is temporal, time bound. Like the winter months, it will pass. The very fact that this poem exists indicates that possibility.
The Fragility and Impermanence of Life
In the middle of the poem, Carson presents the stark, impactful image of slippery ice. The ice is so smooth that even the wind is thin and fragile over it, moving so fast it appears torn to shreds. This image of howling wind and slippery ice morphs to “[a]ll we wished for, shreds” (Line 6), suggesting that the ice is powerful enough to shatter hopes and dreams. The suggestion turns even more ominous when the image morphs into that of “little ones” (Line 7) not being able to stand on the ice. It is implied that the children can slip on the ice or get hurt; worse, they can fall through into freezing waters below. Taken together, these morphing images convey the fragility of life. At any given moment, the ice may crack, leading to dire consequences.
Ice in itself is also a symbol of change and impermanence, since it evolves so easily. Though the ice seems insurmountable, the truth is it can and will melt, which gives it its slippery, uncertain quality. The speaker describes the ice in the beginning of the poem as having different forms: It can seem to be clear, or crystallized around a piece of stone, or house a shadow inside. Here, ice represents life itself, which is prone to change. Life is unexpected, just like the ice ranging in color from brown to white to silver. It can morph from frozen to burning, manageable to so vast and sun-like that it burns everything. This makes life impermanent and unpredictable. Faced by the impermanent aspect of life, the speaker goes into physical and mental hibernation to marshal their resources. Perhaps taking a break is the best way to weather life’s storms.
The Power of Nature
One of the subtler themes in Carson’s characteristically open-ended poem is the awe that nature inspires. Canadian poet James Pollock says Carson’s work has stands of Romanticism, with nature inspiring the “sublime,” a sense of wonderment so absolute it borders on terror. In “Some Afternoons She Does Not Pick Up the Phone,” a natural phenomenon—ice, and by extension a snowy winter—has a profound effect on both the physical world and the speaker’s state of mind. The world is dominated by ice, symbolizing the power of nature to take control of human constructs with ease. Such is the power of ice, the children cannot play outdoors, the post cannot make its way through, and the speaker cannot put a stroke of a letter on paper.
The interesting quality of this powerful manifestation of nature is that it is also very beautiful, seen in how the speaker describes the shades of ice, its dark heart, its beauty so dazzling it burns out the sight of everything else. Thus, ice represents nature in both its terrible and wonderful aspects.
Carson also brings a distinctive domestic and feminist sensibility to her treatment of the theme of nature. Unlike traditional Romantic poets, she considers the effect nature has on day-to-day life: the running of a home, the management of children, the physical act of writing. Carson draws attention to the fact that letters do not arrive through the snow. Perhaps the speaker’s hands are so frozen they cannot write. Perhaps the speaker is overwhelmed at having to keep the children home since the ice outside is too slippery. All these suggestions ground Carson’s treatment of nature in lived reality.
Nature is powerful because it can enhance and disrupt the human engagement with the world, force humans to change tracks, adapt, or sometimes simply freeze. Another effect of nature the poet alludes to is the moodiness brought on by extreme weather, especially winter. The “she” of the title experiences a February of the mind mimicking the February outside. She does not want to answer the phone, but she does want to stay still and snowed in. Carson thus uses an unusual angle to display the power that nature wreaks in everyday life.
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