Avital Horowitz Week 3: "one more time, with feeling" - Rachel McKibbens

One more time, with feeling, a poem by Rachel McKibbens, is an interesting and enthralling poem about the rage and desire for revenge, of the narrator. The narrator, a woman, was a homeless teenage mother who was betrayed by her friend when she found out her friend was in love with the man she loved. The woman was so angry, she bought a gun and planned to kill her friend. During those 45 minutes of need for revenge, she was prepared and ready to end the life of her friend. She thinks back to that short time of pure wrath she felt, and realized that she never told her friend that she saved her life by deciding not to take it away from her. 

The structure of this poem is quite interesting because the beginning of the poem gives no background to the reader. Due to this structure, the poet allows the reader to interpret what is going to happen next. The first line of the poem, "When I was nineteen I bought a gun" (McKibbens) does exactly that. It forces the reader to interpret why the character bought a gun and what they were doing with it. McKibbens uses this first line in order to make the reader draw up questions on what the poem is going to be about, ultimately making the poem more infatuating to the reader.

I really enjoyed this poem because reading it felt like a story. The poem was easy to understand and in a way felt like a poem due to the way it was structured.

One more time, with feeling