"Everything Happens Twice" by Eve Robillard

This poem to me was rather weird, and it really made no sense to me until we discussed it in class. The title really does not have a meaning in relation to the poem; the author does not literally mean things happen twice which is really ironic. The author-- in a very weird way-- expresses that there is a pattern of experience that happens not that things really happen twice.

In the last stanza, "So smile at the guy who drinks too much-/the one with forget-me-not-eyes/Sleep with the one who calls you/ by another woman's name," we see a sense of hopelessness. This stanza really distrubed the poem. After the last stanza was read, this is where I really got confused. After discussing the stanza, it all came together. The last stanza we can picture a women who is in a relationship and the relationship is bringing down this women's self esteem. This is where the author was maybe talking about how why you would want to end a relationship when all these men are going to be the same. This whole stanza was talking about hopelessness and that every relationship is going to be the same.


This poem had a very good lesson to learn, but it was a very difficult to understand. We all learned today that the same event does not repeat, but there is a pattern of experienece. We all hope there is something different, a change that nothing will be the same. We do not want to learn from our mistakes even though we should learn from a situation. We all hope for change and that nothing will be the same, hopefully we all learned that lesson today in class.