Blog #3

Blog # 3 “Bless Their Hearts”

Richard Newman’s poem “Bless Their Hearts” is a pretty straight forward poem, I believe the literal meaning of the poem is that people tend to overuse the phrase “bless your heart” and that its being used incorrectly. The phrase is being used to talk down about someone. The subtext of the poem is frustration with the syntax error of the phrase.

The poem at the beginning gives the literal meaning away by saying “I learned that if you add, “bless your heart” after their names you can say whatever you want about them and its OK” (1-3).  The phrase is being used to talk down about his son when he is called an idiot. “He rents storage space fir his kids’ toys-they’re only one and three years old!”(5-6) The phrase “bless your heart” is being used to describe people with not so good hearts the narrator even said that he “even blessed his ex-wife’s heart” (15) which its not common to bless the heart of your ex-wife because there is a reason that they are your ex in the first place.

Lastly, the poems subtext is frustration that everyone uses the phrase “bless your heart when the persons heart that you are blessing isn’t so great.  So “please bless us and bless our crummy little hearts.” (23)