The Blue Bowl

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2005

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

The Blue Bowl

The bowl represents the speaker’s attempt to give structure and form to her grief, and to participate in a common human ritual of processing this grief. In the face of death, the speaker seeks out ritual and repetitive tasks, and she wants the cat’s burial to convey a larger sense of meaning to her understanding of the natural order. The bowl gives the speaker a physical allusion to the cat’s life. It allows her to contemplate the possibility of an afterlife and to reflect on her own position in the natural world.

The blue bowl also represents the banality and universality of death and grief. The bowl in the poem is simply the cat’s everyday water or food dish; it is not a fancy, beautiful piece of pottery. In highlighting this image in the title of the poem, Kenyon underscores the idea that the simple, everyday actions are what the speaker has found most meaningful. Placing the bowl in the grave also allows the speaker to act, rather than remaining passive, giving her an opportunity to seek meaning via the burial ritual.

The Cat

The dead cat represents the speaker’s larger sense of inchoate depression, grief, and sadness, and her insecurity about how to talk about and deal with her emotions. The cat is the occasion for grief in the poem, but the speaker later admits that the poem is about more than the cat: “There are sorrows much keener than these” (Line 10). While she feels a much deeper sorrow about something she is unwilling or unable to talk about, the cat’s burial allows her to speak about a certain aspect of her grief. She goes into great detail describing the cat’s appearance, emphasizing the color of his fur, the “feathers that grew between his toes” and his “long, not to say aquiline, nose” (Lines 6-8). In doing so, she allows herself an avenue to talk about both natural beauty and her grief, as she tries to give it a specific shape that will allow her to emotionally process it.

The Robin

While “The Blue Bowl” is steeped in a quiet but profound sadness, the image of the burbling robin at the end of the poem represents a possibility of hope and relief, even if the speaker cannot yet access that hope. The robin is a part of the outside world that the speaker views as separate from her experience, and she finds this world difficult to encounter and process in her state of grief. However, by comparing the robin to the “neighbor who means well” (Line 15), Kenyon conveys positivity. If nothing else, there is a world out there with good intentions that may be accessible in the future; the speaker is just not ready yet, as evidenced by the final line of the poem ending on “the wrong thing” (Line 16). The robin suggests the possibility of “easing people’s burdens” that Kenyon referenced in her 1993 interview with Bill Moyers, when she discussed the role of poetry in portraying depression and sorrow. (Moyers, Bill, director. "A Life Together: Poets Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon." 1993. BillMoyers.com).