In the poem "Monologue for Saint Louis,” Colleen McElroy utilizes various literary devices, namely repetition for effect, symbolism, and diction, to elaborate on the changes of the speaker’s hometown, and how the speaker feels unwelcomed after being far from home for such a long time, ultimately conveying the inevitable passage of time and how it can affect what seems to be dearest to a person.

McElroy starts the poem by establishing a feeling of nostalgia through the word choice, but then quickly turns the nostalgia into a feeling of emptiness. The speaker is portrayed as being “home again,” and that alone connotes the speaker’s desire of wanting to go back home, to go back to where she belongs. But immediately, the speaker states that her “heart [is] barely there,” totally contradicts with the expectation that a person’s heart should be filled with joy and excitement when they have a chance to revisit where they grew up. The first line of the poem clearly gives a hint about something that might have happened that causes the speaker to no longer feel the connection she used to have with her hometown. The cause is revealed in the very next line, when the speaker was “choked by clusters of words.” The worst thing that could happen to a person when they visit home has happened: something has changed and the person could not say a single word to describe it. McElroy does not explicitly state that those “clusters of words” are shocking; instead, the poet compares the clusters of words to the “clumps of blue-black grapes” that the young speaker obtained through a foul yet mouthful act: “snitching from the neighbor’s arbor.” McElroy uses the foul act the speaker herself did to describe the foul scene that the speaker has to face when she revisits her hometown. The first stanza is dedicated to how the speaker feels unwelcomed, and hinting what might have happened that leads to that scenario.

The shocking change is elaborated more in the next few stanzas. Yes, “it is summer again and [she is] home,” but the changes are so shocking that she “vow[s] penance for all of [her] disappearances.” To further explain what the speaker has seen, McElroy lists a handful of vivid details, like how “earthworms have trellised the arbor,” how “familiar houses and schoolyards have disappeared.” The entire view of the hometown has changed! The changes are seen in every house, on every street, even in the very same arbor she used to have her memories with. And not just that the scene has changed, people have changed to, even herself. The speaker admits, “[they] are the women [they] whispered about each summer.” This confession can be inferred that the speaker has become the very same kind of woman she did not want to be (because she “talked” about them in small volume). But she has to accept it, time has changed everything, from objects to people, and things no longer “shield [them] from wind or words.” “Words” in this case represents the judgement of society on women, and the “gossips” that they have to accept (just like how the speaker herself used to “whisper” about people). The changes in the scene and people also means the changes in how the speaker deals with it. Life is no longer like the “childhood streets” where she could run back and forth, which represents the freedom and carelessness of the youth; it is now full of “one-way signs” that restrict her from going back and fixing her actions, that prompt her that there’s no way back, and she can only go forward and face all of the realities, harsh realities, like the “accusing fingers.”

McElroy then introduces relatives, the people that every single one wants to see the most when they return home. The speaker is home, where “[her] cousins” sit, the people that are closest to her on the “genetic maps.” Except, this “strange summer,” “[her] cousins have disappeared.” The disappearance of her relatives makes the speaker regret. She regrets that “each summer,” she “vowed to return home.” Every summer, she made the people dearest to her waiting, and yet she could never make it home. All the details about cousins and how she is unable to make it home are meant to invoke the feeling of regret, and they prompt the readers to take a step back and think about if they should visit their hometown or not. Because they should. And they shouldn’t be like the speaker herself who couldn’t, or didn’t, make it home. Now she will have to face the consequences of being far from home for too long: becoming “a stranger” in their very own home. But it is at the very end of this poem that McElroy makes a turn. This “stranger” does not feel lost in their very home, even though things might have changed. This “stranger” knows how to be “in love with words,” and she knows how to use the “sweet tart clusters of poems” to turn this moment of solitude into a moment full of emotions. The diction makes it very clear: this is an optimistic opportunity for the speaker. On this journey of returning home, she has seen how everything has changed, and she has learned how to be in love with her home, again.