Peter Skrzynecki In The Folk Museum Poem Meaning

Belonging Essay

An individual’s choices and experiences affect their sense of belonging whether that is through searching intently or forming an attachment through physical objects and their surroundings. Sometimes it is needed to stop searching in order to find a sense of belonging. The more that individual seeks out and looks for a sense of belonging the harder it may become to find what they are searching for. That individual becomes desperate and may settle for something less than they require. When this happens it will always leave them with a greater sense of feeling alienated and isolated as they start to question their sense of purpose and why you do not belong. This is shown through Peter Skrzynecki’s poem “In the Folk Museum” and

He needed to make the choice to stop yearning to find that sense of belonging in physical aspects of his life such as described in this quote, ‘machinery, clothes, transport, a Victorian bedroom – hay knife, draining plough, shoulder yolk, box iron.’ Illustrated by the quote, and the use of asyndeton, Skrzynecki is listing off all these different relics as he sees them but does not find a connection with. In the line, ‘I look at words’ the short diction, word choice and line length shows us different variations of disconnection. He is looking at these relics and says they are ‘to remind me of a past that isn’t mine.’ How is one supposed to remember a past they never knew? Rather than try to uncover a past he had no connection with he ought to have sought solace in the present. Things he could connect to without his Polish heritage. In the third stanza, Skrzynecki uses the quote ‘the grey clay bottle that’s cold as water to touch.’ This simile and use of the word cold is symbolic of his uncomfortable interaction with the museum. Belonging is the feeling and sense of warmth and light. When

Similarly to Skrzynecki’s poem “In the Folk Museum” there are different key themes and ideas explored. In the lines ‘I am not a Sunday morning or a Friday sunset/… I am a broken window during February’ these are metaphors that are contrasted against each other. The feeling an individual gets from a ‘Sunday morning’ or a ‘Friday sunset’ are typically warm, light-hearted, comforting emotions just like those associated with that of belonging. Sunday mornings can represent getting up late, being comfortable and warm amongst those you belong to, whereas a Friday sunset can depict a calming end to the week where one can return to those close to them. On the contrary the choice of diction such as ‘broken’ and ‘February’ are linked to feelings of coldness, darkness, and a fragile detachment just like the concepts found in Skrzynecki’s poem. The quote ‘I am a Tuesday 2am, I am gunshots muffled by a few city blocks’ metaphorically displays a comparison between being physically noticed and the authors sense of invisibility. A 2am on a Tuesday is an insignificant, unremarkable time of the week which passes by without anyone noticing it. ‘Gunshots muffled’ is a similar representation in that it can be only heard but not seen, passing by undetected. “I sometime believe that I don’t belong around people, that I