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Janice Mirikitani is an author who wrote “Suicide Note” which is a poem that is filled with many smiles, metaphors, and lines of repetition. Just from reading the title, readers should get the feeling appears to be gloomy and depressed. It almost felt as if the poem got colder after every single sentence till the very end. The use of winter in the poem is a reference to death, but in the case of the poem it is used as a battle to keep going. The girl characterizes her as a sparrow in the sense that she is nothing special and how fragile it can be in tough situations. Mirikatani illustrates that idea in these sentences“It is snowing steadily/ surely not good weather/ for flying—this sparrow/ sillied and dizzied by the wind/ on the edge.”(ll.36-40). The girl in the poem in the poem only wants to make her parents proud but her failures would make her feel like life would be a lot easier if she was a boy instead. “If only I were a son, shoulders broad /. . . /male hands worthy of work and comfort. I would swagger through life muscled and bold and assured, drawing praises to me ” (Mirikitani, ll. 10,15-19). The girl is a child of Asian culture, which molds in the character's mind that she is not worth living since she can not do manual labor as effectively as boys.
the author of this poem uses a lot of things to illustrate how to show how the character is feeling. Mirikitani used a simile in the second sentence of the poem “ink smeared like birdprints in snow.” ( l.2). The character is simply comparing her writing this suicide note to how birds make bird prints in the snow. It could also mean that she is making a mark in life but eventually, it would be covered up due to life moving on. This was not the only time she used bird attributes “My sacrifice I will drop/ bone by bone, perched/ on the ledge of my womanhood,/ fragile as wings.” (Mirikitani, ll. 31-34). This statement signifies that even after she gives her all into any situation, it will not achieve anything. This leads the character to think there aren’t any choices for her to make. She feels there is nothing she can do and that there is no one out there to help her as well. The author illustrates how the girl doesn’t have many options other than to just die “choices thin as shaved/ ice . . .” (Mirikitani, ll. 49-50).
The metaphors in this poem helped mold the deeper feeling of the character. “Each failure, a glacier./ Each disapproval, a bootprint./ Each disappointment,/ ice above my river.” (Mirikitani, ll. 24-27). The first statement of “each failure, a glacier” tells that her failures cause bigger impacts not only on herself but on the people surrounding her. The next line saying that “each disapproval, a bootprint” signifies that she gets stepped on, not physically but mentally and emotionally. Lastly, the statement “ice above my river” has the feeling that there is always going to be someone better than her in all aspects of life. She can try to get better in life, but the vision of making people proud is just a hopeful dream.
Throughout the poem, certain lines are repeated to show the importance and what fully drives the character to commit suicide. “not good enough not pretty enough not smart enough” (Mirikatani, l.3) is mostly repeated while apologizing to her parents. She is not the perfect child that she feels like she needs to be to feel appreciated. These lines that repeat are thoughts in her head that overshadow everything else in her head. The more it repeated, the more she felt that she didn’t deserve to continue in her disappointing life.
Situations like these are not caused by only one thing. The poem defines the problems with stereotypes and unresolved emotions that would lead the girl to take her life. There are many cases of people doing very similar actions because of a lack of love from family and friends or the way people see others based on racial stereotypes. Mirikatani wrote near the end of the poem which gives some hope even if the character dies. “Perhaps when they find me/they will bury/ my bird bones beneath/a sturdy pine”(ll.56-59). The character hopes to be found how she died, and understand what made her do what she did. The idea of being buried under a sturdy pine might mean she wants to shed some light on the situation and wants people to be more aware of the people they know and care for them.
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