After you have read the poem, discuss each of the following questions with your group. Write down thorough answers on one sheet of paper per group.
1. What is your impression of the speaker from reading the first stanza of the poem? Why do you think he stabs the girl? Do you think he should have gone to jail? What do you think happened in the scene described in the first stanza?
2. How does the second stanza of the poem affect your reading of the poem? Why do you think the speaker changes his story? Why do you think the speaker cannot remember exactly what happened? What do you think really happened?
3. Why do you think the speaker keeps dreaming about the mother? What is the significance of the mother in the poem?
4. Describe the turns in the poem. How do these turns affect the meaning of the poem as a whole?
5. What do you think the last line of the poem means? “And this. I’m here or not here. I can’t tell. I stab her. I stab her again. I still can’t.”
6. What do you think this poem is actually about?