When I first read the title, I assumed that as the author explains, it refers to an advertising slogan that described the process of developing postmortem images. "Secure the shadow 'ere the substance fade". After reading the poem, I realized that not only does the title refer to the process of sensitizing the silver surface of the photograph with iodine and exposing the mercury to vapor, but it also refers to one of the main themes of the poem. The author uses the descriptions of various photographs and the stories behind them to explain peoples' efforts to preserve their loved ones in real life and in their memories. By taking the picture, you create a sort of shadow of your loved one; although you cannot change the finality of death or prevent their body from dying over time, you can capture a moment that reflects what they looked like and how they would have been while they were alive.
I really liked how Emerson split the poem into 6 numbered sections, one through five being the descriptions of the different photographs and six being her personal reflection on the photographs. The first stanza went right into the description of the first child, and as the other stories followed I got lost in her descriptions and could actually picture each child and the environment in which the picture was taken. Going straight from the fifth description to her reaction shocked me because it made me leave the foreign 19th century setting that I had created in my mind and return to reality. I thought this had a nice effect.
I also really liked how the author defined the boundary between life and death through imagery and diction. Each story contains the common thread that the child has died and the family has prepared the body and hired a photographer to take a picture. She points out certain characteristics that would suggest the person were living or remind someone of how they acted when they were alive: "the hands of a healthy child, the face still round with baby fat", "a book in her daughter's right hand, her left thumb holding down the page, place marked as though in a passage to which she will return", "his gaze disobeys, as though intent on the stubborn sky instead, refusing this", "In her arms a cat, quite alive and nervous-mouth open-blurs its face in the turning, about to escape this embrace made strange". At the same time, Emerson contradicts these statements with reminders that the child has died: "the girl in the photograph has been dead nine days" and lies on a "bed of ice", "the boy dead from scarlet fever", "the simple failure to thrive common as it is irreversible". In each instance, someone has tried to make their dead loved one appear natural in the photo, but it still seems forced. As an onlooker, Emerson recognizes that no matter how accurately people were able to present their loved ones, they cannot capture their essence. "There are, after all, only so many frames....only so many ways to look until the light changes, fades, is lost".
The difference in times confused me. The types of pictures the author describes were invented in 1839, and while I was reading it, I felt that I was in the past. The author seemed like she received the photos shortly after they were taken, but this poem was written less than a week ago. I also wondered why she would sometimes end lines with natural pauses, then completely interrupt her thoughts other times.
http://poems.com/poem.php?date=14943
I loved this poem when I first read it--my favorite of the week--and I'm glad you liked it too. I like the way you clarify the poem's structure and the way you connect the epigraph to the contents--the parents' attempts to preserve their dead children (and the poet's parallel attempt to preserve these images in poetry). I like where you are going at the very end and would have been happy to hear you think a bit more about her formal choices. Nice work.
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