Summary
"Cozy Apologia" is a poem written by former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove. It was first published in 2004.
The poem begins with the speaker stating that all thought eventually leads back to the addressee of the poem, the person whom the speaker loves. Because the poem is dedicated to Dove's husband, Fred, and because the poem makes reference to an actual event—Hurricane Floyd, which occurred in 1999—the reader can safely assume that Dove is speaking from her own perspective or at least one very close to her own. The speaker imagines a stock scene of a knight saving a princess from some nebulous villain as a way to reimagine their relationship as one with higher stakes.
The speaker reminisces over, then dismisses, her earlier relationships and notions of love. Despite the mundanity of her current relationship, the speaker states that “nothing else will do” and prefers their relationship to the “hollow center[s]” of previous, seemingly more passionate relationships. Though the person she loves is not in the room with her, she can sense his presence from across the house, and that brings her comfort and allows her to daydream rather than dwell in her depression.
The poem consists of thirty lines, divided equally into three stanzas. The poem is in free verse with an irregular rhyme scheme, and some of the lines use iambic pentameter.
Analysis
The first stanza of this poem could have been pulled from any fairytale, and though the scene is exciting and action-packed, the scene pales in comparison to the specificity of the first three lines and the last stanza; those lines detail the way ink spreads on a page and even describe the floorboards of the speaker's house. This stanza is also the only one of the three to have a completely regular rhyme scheme, (AABB). This rhyme scheme lends the stanza the tone of a nursery rhyme or a limerick; the language, such as lines like "astride the dappled mare," "furrowed brow," and "chain mail glinting," despite their richness, feel like they are in a forced high register. However, this shift in tone seems purposeful. These images foreshadow the boys who are compared to candies later in the poem, who seem enchanting but are empty on the inside.
The following stanzas break out of this entirely uniform rhythm, though the second one largely stays the same. The final stanza changes so the end rhymes end on alternating lines (ABAB). However, this rhyme scheme changes in the second stanza, when the speaker turns to talk about past boyfriends, and the word "boys" is left floating without a word on the following line to rhyme with until the last line of the stanza, which ends on "Floyd". In the last stanza, the rhymes at first appear on alternating lines, then switch briefly back to the AA rhyme scheme, but the last lines of the poem slant-rhyme their way toward the last couplet. Dove rhymes "happiness" with "us," then the last four lines rhyme "news", "do", "blues", and "you". It's hard to say whether these are four lines that all rhyme or if this is an ABAB scheme; either could be argued. This ambiguity itself refers back to the core of the poem, the idea that the speaker's relationship is not a whirlwind romance but something more ambiguous and comfortable, marked more by contentment than joy or pain.
The second stanza breaks away from the archaic tone by flat-out mentioning different types of modern technology. In the same stanza the speaker thinks, with some nostalgia but no remorse, of the passing relationships she had before the one she has now. The way she lists information in this stanza contrasts with the flowery scene from the first stanza; the reader can almost see how the speaker catalogs her thoughts. She personifies the passing hurricane due to its name, and in doing so retains some of the imaginative tone of the first stanza.
Iambic pentameter, which appears in lines such as, "Cussing up a storm. You're bunkered in your," and both rhyme schemes that appear nod to sonnet forms, as well as other types of rhyming poems; the poem uses these elements to invoke an archaic tone, emphasizing the fantastical natures of the scenes and memories the speaker muses over, but the poem refuses to be pinned down into any one form. The way the speaker gestures toward, then veers away from, more formal structures amplifies the mixed feelings of her present moment. She feels very comfortable and content in her relationship, even if she is not being bowled over by its romance, and though having found true love cannot stave off melancholia indefinitely, she finds comfort in knowing her relationship is there.
The poem's tone is lightly humorous, despite the undercurrent of sadness, which seems to be a natural byproduct of being alive even when one is content. The poem is less of a defense, as its title would suggest, and more of a love letter to the speaker's partner but also in some ways to her past and to her own imagination; the speaker allows herself the space for fantasy to reaffirm how she prefers reality.
