"The Summer I Was Sixteen"

In “The Summer I Was Sixteen,” Geraldine Connolly displays a tone of nostalgia and playfulness as she uses diction to look back at the time of her life. At this time in her life, everything was clean and uncomplicated, with the biggest worry being how to best have a good time. She swims in a “turquoise” pool, connoting immaculate and fresh water indicative of how she lived the rest of her life. Looking back, she laughs at how her younger self “did not exist beyond the gaze of a boy,” and could not look past the shallow things in life. It is no coincidence that this poem take place in the summertime, because it is all about the material possessions in life and how they take over. At this point in her life, all Geraldine cared about was whether or not she was tan and oiled on the beach. Her mentioning of “Dreamsicles” and “cherry cola” really shows how much she was absorbed in this materialistic, summer lifestyle. Throughout the poem, Connolly uses these specific words to drive home her main ideas.