Identity
In “Suburban Sonnet,” the protagonist struggles to navigate between her dual identities as a mother and as an artist. Harwood immediately establishes this central thematic tension in the first two lines of the poem: “She practices a fugue, though it can matter / to no one now if she plays well or not” (lines 1-2). The first line focuses on the woman’s dedicated practice of her music, seeming to suggest that she is a musician. The line ends with the words “it can matter,” which when read independently of the following line, appear to signify hope. However, Harwood then uses enjambment—the continuation of a sentence across multiple lines—to crush the hope created by the first line: “it can matter / to no one now if she plays well or not' (line 2). The use of the word “can” in the first line emphasizes this sense of disappointment. Harwood could have said “it matters / to no one,” but by using the word “can” she implies that it is impossible or futile for anyone to care. The use of the word “now” further highlights the theme of identity by contrasting the woman’s current situation (where her artistic work is undervalued) with the past, when it is implied that audiences did care about her music.
Harwood also uses the woman’s sense of nausea as a metaphor for her uneasiness: “a wave of nausea overpowers / subject and counter-subject.” This symbolically represents how the woman’s role as a mother “overpowers” her previous musical ambitions. The fact that the mother is nauseous may also imply that she is pregnant, reinforcing the suggestion that her role as a mother may take precedence over her musical ambitions. The metaphor of subject and countersubject further develops this theme. The subject and countersubject are the two main components of a fugue, but here they refer to the mother’s two competing identities, which “counter” each other.
This theme is further developed in lines 9 and 10, which contrast the mother’s current daily routine with her past. Her days are now characterized by “crusted milk,” chattering children, and the constant process of cleaning, but lines 9 and 10 note that “Once she played / for Rubinstein.” Since Rubinstein is a prominent musician, the fact that he served as the woman’s audience emphasizes her prior accomplishments in music. The image of Rubinstein, an iconic pianist who is well-versed in music, contrasts with the woman’s current audience—her shouting, capering children, who pay no mind to her music. This subtle allusion amplifies the contrast between the woman’s two identities. Throughout the poem, Harwood explores the limitations that are placed on women through strict gender roles that confine them to the home.
Gender Roles
“Suburban Sonnet” critiques the ideal of a calm, happy domestic life by illustrating the frustrations and burdens that can accompany the roles of motherhood and homemaking. Harwood uses structure to support this theme. Unlike a traditional sonnet, the poem lacks stanza breaks, which creates a sense of chaos as the reader is transported from one domestic emergency—the boiling pot, the nausea, the dead mouse—to the next with no structural interruptions. Similarly, Harwood frequently utilizes enjambment, or the continuation of a sentence across multiple lines of poetry with no grammatical divisions. This technique heightens the sense of chaos by escalating the sense of frustration across multiple lines. For example in line 3 “two children chatter,” but in line 4 they “then scream and fight.” Unlike the idealized housewife who happily presides over her household, the woman is clearly dissatisfied with her life—she feels “nausea” and her sense of “Zest,” or energy, and “love / drain out with soapy water.” These lines use the domestic image of water running down a drain to symbolize the woman’s passions draining away. The final image of the magazine paper expands on this negative characterization of domesticity. The magazine claims that its readers can turn “stale bread” into “Tasty dishes,” symbolizing the false idealization of domestic life. Through her harsh and realistic poem, Harwood exposes the “stale” reality of gender roles as compared to the external, cultural image of motherhood and suburbia in the 1960s.
Regret
The speaker in “Suburban Sonnet” reflects on her past musical performances while she tends to her children. As the reference to the famous pianist Arthur Rubinstein suggests, the speaker once achieved high levels of musical success. However, Harwood does not glamorize the woman’s past. She notes that Rubinstein “yawned” at the woman’s performance, invoking a sense of disappointment that characterizes not only the woman’s present domestic life but her past life as a musician. Just as her children do not appreciate her music while they bicker around her, Rubinstein also did not understand or celebrate her performance. In this sense, Rubinstein represents not only the woman’s successes, but also her disappointments. The use of the word “once” also firmly situates Rubinstein in the past and juxtaposes the woman’s prior performances with her current domestic life. The word “once” is frequently used in the fairy-tale literary genre. Here, Harwood subverts that genre by presenting an unflinching look into the disappointed life of a woman who has seemingly not only achieved musical success but fulfilled the stereotypical role of her time by becoming a mother and housewife. Despite her accomplishments and role, the mother feels disappointed and nauseous, creating a sense of regret that characterizes each line in the poem.
