The Language of the Brag

Sharon Old’s The Language of the Brag offers a new way to look at the act of childbirth.  The poet’s presence is strongly pronounced from the onset and she makes repeated use of the phrase “I have wanted” in the poem’s first sections.  There is also pronounced poetic action depicted in the poem, in which the poet establishes her longing to perform an act of heroism or extraordinary achievement.  In the middle of the poem, she changes the structure of her poetic lines with each line describing the changes her body undergoes as her pregnancy progresses.  There is a repetition of the word “swelling” in this section to emphasize this climactic change in her body.  The next section is a vivid and somewhat gory accounting of the childbirth act, the denouement of the poem.  In the last stanza, Old’s compares the act of giving birth to an exceptional heroic deed and ends the poem by placing her “proud American boast right here with the others.”  Ergo, the language of the brag.  So, if you’re gonna brag about something, you might as well do it with some style!  I also appreciated her unusual choice of modifiers in the poem, such as “electric muscles,” and “glistening verb.”