Rain on Tin
Maria S. Mendes
“Rain on Tin” is the final poem in Salvation Blues by Rodney Jones, the last poem we encounter in a collection where we first meet up with that provocative title. Why would salvation and the happy day it famously promises give anyone the blues? That title reminds me of the fortunes of bright-spirited stars in Shakespearean comedy—Beatrice, Rosalind, Portia—who must finally undergo that cultural form’s idea of a happy ending: condemned to redemption, so to speak, despite the best efforts of their wit and charm to educate their future husbands.
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