Not A Clue About Poetry

Reading 180 more extraordinary poems for every day there are a few poems that I have to take a second look at to understand the full grasp of the poem. One of the poems I had to take a second look at was “The Russian Greatcoat” by Theodore Deppen. After reading the poem for the first time I was a little confused as to what Deppen was trying to explain to the readers. The poem starts off with the narrator swimming with his family having a great time and all of a sudden he starts to remember an old memory. The memory is about an unknown friend and the narrator’s Russian greatcoat standing on the Covington Bridge. A questions that comes to mind is who is this friend that he is with and what does this friend mean to the narrator. The friend is a great mystery to the reader something that also adds to the mystery is the fact that when the narrator’s wife asks about what he is thinking he lies to her to hide what he was thinking. It is almost as if the mention of the friend to the narrator’s wife would be almost an act of treason. The only thing I can think is that the friend was a past lover of the narrator and they had to keep it a secret from the narrator’s wife and that’s why he feels that his thoughts alone are an act of betrayal.