After the Blast “After the Blast” is a very powerful poem written by Elyse Fenton. It is a poem that personifies the struggles of spouses who have husbands or wives overseas on deployment. Fenton has firsthand experience with this struggle, and she relies on these experiences to influence her poetry. Her husband served numerous amounts of tours in Iraq as an Army medic; therefore it is certain he has seen some of the more horrific sights of war. That explains the motivation of this particular poem. After reading this poem closely it is clear that Elyse Fenton is in fact the speaker, and she is fighting an internal battle with herself which is causing immense pain for her, and making it difficult for her to support her husband. “After the Blast” is told from the perspective of the spouse, most likely Elyse Fenton, who has never seen the horrors of war, except through her husband. She is fighting…show more content… The last two stanzas in the poem indicate this. In the last stanza the speaker says, “…lungful of air contracting like a body caught in climax. Graceless, before the ballooning rush of air or sound. The battering release.” As I read this I immediately imagined a deflating balloon. She even uses the phrase “ballooning rush” to depict this imagery. The word “deflate” has a negative connotation. It means that something, or someone, is losing something and destroying its form. That can be in the case of gas, or air as she uses it, or in a human being. I believe the speaker is deflating. She is losing hope, confidence, and seems as if she is not as important to the spouse overseas as she once was. That being said, it seems as though she gives up in the last line. She uses the term “The battering release” as if she is finally able to breathe. If that is the case, the only way she feels she could breathe is to cut ties with her husband. That final line is almost a way to say it is the last time she will speak to the
