Eyes and Mirrors
In both "Old and Young" and "Self-Portrait, 1969", Bidart uses eyes and mirrors to depict the introspection that happens to his characters when they look at themselves. In "Old and Young", when the eyes of the old and young man meet through the mirror, they are "locked" in a stare which opens an entire universe of self-understanding. This gives a very vivid image that symbolizes the connection between the two characters that are a reflection of each other at different ages. In fact, not only are they looking at a mirror but they are a mirror of one another, just before a performance, the mirror symbolizes the depths of who they are, at their truest form. On the other hand, Bidart in "Self-Portrait, 1969" uses the mirror in a different way, not to symbolize a conscious reflection of his true self, but as a subconscious reflection of how he feels: "angry", "unfulfilled".
Mother
When the man in "Self-Portrait, 1969" looks at the mirror, he sees his mother, and through her, himself. She is there as a symbol of everything that was "unfulfilled" in his life, all the anger, all the confusion.
Youth and Old Age
A common motif that is referred to frequently in the works of Bidart is the topic of age, both young and old. The juxtaposition of the younger self with the older self symbolizes introspection and shows the emotional reflection and the evolution they went through over the course of their life.
Sexuality
In "The Old Man at the Wheel", Bidart uses "light" as a symbol of the truth that could be brought to what was "too dark to be survived" that symbolizes his sexuality as a gay man. In the poem, he talks about exorcism which is a symbol of what he went through growing up with parents who never acknowledged his sexuality and thus tried to "purify him".
Illusion of Transformation
In many of his poems, Bidart talks about transformation as an illusion. Symbolizing transformation as an illusion is a way of explaining that change is not easy, even though he tries to reach it through the process of writing by using poetry as a vehicle for reconstructing lives.
