Situation and Setting 1: Summer Love - Marilyn Chin

The setting and Marilyn's past may affect "Summer Love". She grew up in Portland, Oregon where she gets the "bay oysters". The setting, though not defined, is any place near the sea. The situation is more important than the setting. Marilyn talks about the intimacy that the two lovers had the night prior to the breakfast and how she is afraid that her lover "might walk away". Her connection with her lover is strong bceause she fears "there will not be another like" her love.

Marilyn uses setting to give the intimacy needed in this poem. The sea and the "field of floss and iris" gives it the romantic feeling that summer love is about. The situation is supported by the setting in this poem, because without this romantic setting, the poem would have a lesser meaning. This is just my opinion though. The "heart of the vulva, vulva of the heart" gives the real image of the poem. (Vulva - External genital region of a female)The speaker is pouring herself to her lover. She says "nothing worse in the morning than last night's love" because she is saying that the intimacy was special and it should not just happen spontaneously all the time. That is how the setting is used as a scaffolding of the situation of the poem.