August 24, 2015: More Poems I Love: Larcom’s “Weaving”

[A few years back, I shared a handful of my favorite American poems in a weeklong series. Before I go back to sharing poems for money—well, teaching them as part of my job, but you get the idea—I wanted to highlight another week’s worth of favorite poems and a couple reasons why I love each. Share your favorites in comments, please!]Today’s favorite poem is Lucy Larcom’s “Weaving”(c. 1862).I love “Weaving” because it builds on Larcom’s amazing biography—from a starting point as one of the Lowell Mill workers who started the Lowell Offering to a life as an abolitionist activist and a dean of American poetry and letters—and brings all those stories and histories together into its central, multi-layered image and metaphor. We talk about the concept of “intersectionality”in identity and society in the 21st century—well, Larcom and her poem portrayed and modeled it pitch-perfectly in the mid-19th. Next favorite tomorrow,BenPS. Thoughts on this poem? Other favorites you’d share?