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Mirrors often show up in poetry in symbolic roles, as self-knowledge, distortion, doubles, and thresholds. We looked at some varied approaches to the mirror in poetry.
"Mirror" by Sylvia Plath is probably the most famous “mirror poem.” The mirror speaks here in a cold, objective voice: “I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.” It becomes a symbol of unyielding truth, especially as a woman ages and confronts her changing identity. The mirror is not comforting; it is brutally honest, almost inhuman.
In "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" by Anne Sexton, she rewrites the fairy tale, focusing on the mirror as an instrument of patriarchal judgment and female self-surveillance.
An early example is "The Lady of Shalott" by Alfred Lord Tennyson. The lady of the poem lives under a curse and can only see the world through a mirror, never directly. Today, we might call this mediated reality. When she turns away from it to look directly, her world collapses. This poem explores the danger of moving from **illusion into reality**, and the cost of authentic experience.
I have always loved the mirror as a portal or threshold, as in Alice Through the Looking-Glass. Okay, it is prose, but Lewis Carroll embedded poems in the book. He treats the mirror as a passage into an inverted world. That is a classic metaphor for crossing into the unconscious or the surreal.
What we see when we look in a mirror might be an uncanny double. "Facing It" by Yusef Komunyakaa is set at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which is a reflective black surface. The speaker sees his own face merge with the names of the dead. That mix - “I’m stone. I’m flesh” mixes past and present, self and ghost.
Yusef Komunyakaa was born on April 29, 1947, in Bogalusa, Louisiana, where he was raised during the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement.
He served in the United States Army from 1969 to 1970 as a correspondent, then as managing editor of the Southern Cross during the Vietnam war, which earned him a Bronze Star.
Poet Yusef Komunyakaa first received recognition following the 1984 publication of Copacetic, a collection of poems built from colloquial speech which demonstrated his incorporation of jazz influences.
His work blends the realities of the Vietnam War, and the complex textures of Southern vernacular. He gained widespread recognition with Dien Cai Dau (1988), a seminal collection capturing the psychological and physical landscape of the war.
In 1994, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems, which solidified his reputation as a master of vernacular rhythm and surreal imagery.
SOLIPSISM
To keep the birds, chipmunks, rabbits and squirrels
away from her vegetable garden, my sister has taken
to placing mirrors around her vegetable garden.
Her theory is that seeing themselves and the flashes
of light and the challenging image will frighten them away.
It seems to be working, she says. After all, aren't we all
a bit frightened when we see ourselves reflected
unexpectedly?, she asks me. And I know it's true
for her but not for me, but I don't say that and nod Yes.
The brief startle of my face where or when it is unexpected
might trigger the amygdala for a moment until the intruder
is recognized as yourself, or when the sensitive peripheral vision
senses a presence - predator or prey - details unclear.
As I'm writing, I'm seeing my reflection in the window to the sidewalk
and registering the dissonance of her to me and how people passing
through me are disconnected without recognition in that reversed world.
My face shifts, melts into someone else, who wonders what I am writing.
Seema Singh
I AM
I am no Narcissus gazing at a watery reflection and forgetting to eat or sleep,
dying beside that pool and then becoming a flower by the hand of Nemesis.
I am one who avoids seeing my own reflection, though I would never fall
in love with my Self, that unstable, temporary illusion separate from reality.
I am reflecting, I suppose, with each poem on some image of the world,
a version of me seen through different eyes, an echo sent back but different
like the person in this old mirror, its silver surrendering, more an impression,
someone softened in a constellation of fine cracks. I am now submerged.
Albert Reeves
WAITING FOR MY TURN AT THE DELI COUNTER
I learned that the reason mirrors are
covered during the week of mourning death
is that our broken hearts make us
susceptible to negative forces that ghosts of
ill will exert through the mirror world.
These imps are ever-present, apparently, but they
don't affect us unless we glimpse their
wretched forms lurking in the background of
our own reflections. Keep the limelight on
the family members of the recently buried.
I see these Hieronymus Bosch deformities crouching in
corners when I defog my bathroom mirror.
They're visible to me in restaurants and
airport lounges that use mirrors to make
me feel the weight of some illusory largeness.
Who am I to question this wise man
waiting for lox? His hermeneutic road of
quirky, unresolvable questions allows, like mirrors do,
worlds with or without evil, depending on
whether we choose to shield our eyes.
Rob Friedman
OBJECTS IN THIS MIRROR ARE FARTHER AWAY THAN THEY APPEAR
If walls could talk
And they do
Then mirrors whisper
Quietly, tauntingly
Deceitfully, Seductively
What’s the rush baby?
Come back here
Too scared?
My Jewish friends
Cover their mirrors
During periods of mourning
To look inward, to focus on prayer
Long ago, some were wary
Believing they were portals
Of the soul-stealing variety
I think they got it right
They lure, lie and manipulate
Think of those times when
You thought you saw something
More than just your reflection
Tricksters - all of them
They command any space
Upon which they are hung
They tell us we’re old, beautiful
Young, ugly, powerful, pathetic
We see who we think we are
And who we are not
We want from them what they will not give
Truth, honesty, acceptance, love
Scam artists of the highest caliber
The frenemy you can’t stop running into
Worthless words and feigned support
And on the occasion
When they really want to screw with you
They offer a glimpse of your real self
With a wily whisper, they challenge
“Go ahead, you got this”
Terri J. Guttilla
TORNADO
Late last night, the kids and I
huddled together in basement black
as wind and rain dismantled our house
like cranky toddlers flinging Legos.
This morning: sun
on shards of glass,
a tree bisecting the living room,
chairs and couches sodden as sponges,
books and photos strewn like confetti.
I wept and cursed the universe
as I sifted through piles of debris
till I spotted something peeking out
from a muddy mound of sticks and leaves.
I grabbed a shovel and dug until
I uncovered my grandmother's
hand-held mirror, a prized antique
she gave me on my wedding day,
grimy now, but fully intact,
a message from the god of Hope
that everything would be okay.
Susan Spaeth Cherry
MYSELF IN PIECES
I’m standing in front of Art on the Divide.
Mirrored on window glass, I am indeed divided.
I snap a photo of the window-dressing & unlit
studio inside – it’s closed. I’m in the photo too,
reflected on glass with an artist’s ceramic face
of 2 tiny blue eyes & a loopy smile
combining nose & mouth, askew. That’s me,
alright, always a trifle odd. My cheek
on the NW side is June’s blossoming garden
seen thru the studio’s glass backdoor.
Trust me to find an exit from any indoors out
into nature. The rest of me in the photo
is silhouette blending into mysteries of art
in a dark studio, closed because it’s Thursday.
MIRRORS
I am slowly losing them
To Death or distance
Those eyes in which
I have observed myself
Seen my reflection
In the way they looked
Not just at but into
Sometimes, even through me
No one lens
Creates a perfect image
No mirror, what is absolute
Unblemished truth
Each sees me from
Its own unique perspective
Some flatter me
Some paint a harsher portrait
I used to think, perhaps,
They held the answer
To who I was
Or what I would become
Now, in dusk's filtered light
I see more clearly
Soft hues
Once hidden by the Sun
Frank Kelly
DISTORTIONS
I am skinny
in the Ross store mirrors
which entices me
to buy bodycon dresses
tank tops and crop tops
and mini skirts
In cell phone pictures
I am a giant
by contrast
my face bulbous
as a waxing moon
with double chin
my stomach protruding
from the folds of my skirt
So I incarcerate
the clothes I just bought
in the closet
and retrieve my old wardrobe
of loose T-shirts
and high-rise jeans