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Dear Mr. Brown

Dear Mr. Brown, 

My name is Arya Shah. I am seventeen years old, and a senior at Troy High School. I stumbled upon your poem, "Labor", initially out of reluctancy to check-the-box on what I thought was a labor intensive English assignment. However, I quickly became so engrossed into the poem and I forgot about the trivial work I was pulling my hair out for just a few minutes ago. 

What I admire most about this poem is its ambiguity, and the unsettling atmosphere it leaves. While you begin ranting about "cuss[ing] cutting grass for women", and shift focus onto the women, I thought surely the poem would reveal a tender heart, or wholesome relationship with them that would romanticize the labor or at least blur its pain. But instead, it's so discomforting. Your force us readers to sit with the fact that "they're all dead" because it isn't only the labor that's painful, but also the love. I find that so hard to accept most times, and can't "look at the childhood I hated" without disguising my compulsion to please my mother. 

I recognize that this poem also highlights masculinity, but I couldn’t help but draw parallels from this poem to my own culture. I am raised in a community where performing physical labor is generally associated with older women. I’ve written many poems about my mother and her “bruised and broken scaly hands / caress[ing] my face”. I strongly admire the women in my family, but I fear I won’t live up to their legacies and the soil in which they pass will be left untended by my privileged hands. I sought solace in this poem, but I instead found something I needed much more — a wake up call. 

I also have a few questions for you Mr. Brown. Is there any particular woman in your life that inspires your work beyond the old women you used to work for? Additionally, I’m not familiar with most of your other works, but I’ve noticed a trend in the style of your structure. Why do you generally choose to capitalize the beginning of each line and write poems in one stanza?

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. I admire your work and look forward to reading more in the future.

Sincerely,                                                                                                                                        Arya Shah

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