What the Living Do

Each stanza of “What the Living Do” is a pair of long lines in free verse, without rhyme or meter. The lines sometimes, but not always, break at the ends of sentences, resulting in sporadic enjambment. Like that of many prose poems, the form of “What the Living Do” allows for an open, easy-to-follow narrative, without structural distractions. The slow pacing and simplicity are complemented by Howe’s informal diction, typified by brand names like “Drano” (Line 2) and adjectives such as “crusty” (Line 2) and “wobbly” (Line 8).

Howe has described “What the Living Do” as a letter to her deceased brother, and the poem opens with a direct address to him: “Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days…” (Line 1). By starting the poem with Johnny’s name and ending it with “I remember you” (Line 16), Howe frames the poem in Johnny’s memory. Johnny’s death is a vehicle for the poem’s reflections on life, but more importantly, the poem is an example of its own thesis: The living remember and pay tribute to the dead even while engaged in the minutiae of daily existence.

The first three lines of the poem describe a clogged drain, dirty dishes, and a procrastinated phone call. With these, Howe both establishes her focus on mundane subject matter, and suggests grief and accompanying depression. The speaker hasn’t kept up the house, presumably because they have been preoccupied with Johnny’s death. In the second stanza, the line “this is the everyday we spoke of” (Line 3) reifies the focus on prosaic details and indicates that the speaker's relationship with Johnny is in the past. Throughout the poem, the reader is reminded that the events are being described to Johnny. The commentary is both directed to Johnny and should be considered through the lens of the speaker’s relationship with him.

Winter and the cold temperature come up in the second and third stanzas. The speaker keeps the windows open, saying “the heat’s on too high in here and I can’t turn it off” (Line 5). This costly negligence is left unexplained, and the reader is left to wonder if this is due to some kind of mechanical failure, or the speaker's depth of sadness and incapacitation. The speaker describes the winter sky as “a deep, headstrong blue” (Line 4)—a brief recognition of natural beauty amid the list of daily complaints. Sunlight, normally a symbol of happiness and hope, is pouring through the window, but the speaker remains flooded with grief.

The fourth stanza begins with “I’ve been thinking: this is what the living do” (Line 7), introducing an element of reflection (and the poem’s title) intermingling with continued observations. This is the poem’s first major theme: Quotidian chores are not a footnote to but rather characterize the fundamental experience of life. The meaning of this theme slowly shifts throughout the poem. Here, it may be interpreted as a numb, depressing pronouncement. For weeks, in a haze, the speaker has been thinking “this is what the living do” (Line 7) as if to say, “Is this it?”

For the speaker, these everyday experiences aren’t presented as necessarily satisfying, and the fifth and sixth stanzas explore her frustrations. Most of the errands and experiences listed are inconvenient or frustrating. Issues with the heat and the sink aren’t much fun to manage and may require hiring a professional. The speaker spills coffee on her hand and sleeve and drops a bag of groceries on the street. The cold is uncomfortable. Howe intentionally catalogues mildly unpleasant occurrences to more accurately represent daily life, and to avoid an overly sentimental framing of it. She sums up these experiences at the end of the fifth stanza as “what you called that yearning” (Line 10): daily experiences that leave humans wanting “more and more and then more of it” (Line 12). Her repetition of the words “more” and “again” in the fifth stanza underscore the poem’s examination of repetitive daily tasks.

In terms of imagery, the sixth stanza veers away from the poem’s concentration on the speaker’s daily chores. The speaker reflects on the unsatisfying qualities of life and desire in general terms: “[W]e want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss” (Line 11). This is the poem’s only instance of vaguely symbolic language, if “spring” and “winter” are to be read as symbols of human emotion, happiness, and depression. The reader is thus removed from the poem’s focus on everyday particulars, only to feel the speaker’s mindless dissatisfaction and hazy attention. Notably, the poem contains no explicit metaphors, and descriptive language is brief when available. This style maintains the concrete, everyday mood and directs attention to the few lines of qualitative contemplation. Howe reflects on the daily spiritual essence of errands and hassles but doesn’t expect them to be fulfilling.

Once in a while, however, they are. In the poem’s final two stanzas, Howe describes “moments… I’m gripped by a cherishing so deep/ for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat” (Lines 14-15). This is the poem’s climax, the speaker’s thrilling recognition and celebration of her own active life. The dramatic language of “a cherishing so deep” (Line 14) is contrasted with the rest of the poem’s relatively neutral and informal diction, emphasizing the dramatic spiritual, ecstatic strength of these moments.

Adjectives are scant throughout the poem. In the first few stanzas, Howe reserves two adjectives for the sky, “a deep, headstrong blue” (Line 4), indicating a distinction between the earth’s awe-inspiring natural beauty and the subtle beauty of everyday life. Slowly, these feelings merge, and by the end, the speaker is “speechless” (Line 15) over life itself. Howe uses three adjectives in the second-to-last line--one for each aspect of her reflection. Like the emotional “cherishing” (Line 14), these adjectives highlight the spike in attentiveness, conveying a sweeping feeling of vivacity.

In the final line, she flips the recognition back to Johnny: “I am living. I remember you” (Line 16). The speaker’s life, awareness, and gratitude are inextricable from the past life and memory of her departed loved one. While the poem does not conform to a meter, its lines are all roughly the same length, except for the final line, which is less than half the typical length, imbuing the line with particular weight and focus. The line’s brevity complements its outward simplicity in contrast with the rest of the poem’s established slow pacing and longer lines.