Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Belle Waring?s "It Was My First Nursing Job” is a devastating reflection on medical violence, complicity, and the moral reckoning of a young nurse witnessing cruelty in her first professional role. Written in free verse, the poem?s structure mirrors the disjointed nature of traumatic memory, with sentences flowing in an almost breathless, unbroken rhythm. The absence of formal rhyme or stanza breaks intensifies the raw, confessional tone, as though the speaker is unburdening herself in real time, revisiting moments that have haunted her for years.

The opening line establishes the speaker’s vulnerability: and I was stupid in it. The self-recrimination is immediate, but it is not an admission of actual incompetence; rather, it reflects the naiveté of believing in the fundamental decency of medical professionals. The doctor, an elder in his church, is introduced as a figure of authority, yet his actions contradict the ethical expectations of his position. The violent delivery he performs—brace one hand up his patient’s vagina, clamp the other on her pregnant belly, and force the fetus through an eight-centimeter cervix—is described in brutal, clinical terms. The stellate lacerations that result, spreading like an asterisk, suggest not only physical devastation but also the way the woman’s pain becomes a footnote, a disregarded afterthought in the medical setting.

The head nurse’s response—He doesn’t like to wait around—normalizes the doctor’s brutality, revealing a system where efficiency and hierarchy override patient care. The description of his demeanor—He chattered and smiled broadly as he worked—is chilling in its casualness, reinforced by the grotesque detail that he wore the biggest gloves we could stock. The contrast between his genial outward persona and the harm he inflicts underscores the poem’s underlying theme of institutionalized abuse.

The narrative shifts to another horrifying episode: the loss of a baby. The line Not long dead—you could tell by the skin, intact—but long enough captures the speaker’s measured, professional detachment even as she processes the tragedy. The moment when the doctor flipped open the cover, to let the mother view the body, according to custom is stripped of tenderness; it is a mechanical gesture, devoid of empathy. The doctor’s reaction—What a pity—is disturbingly perfunctory, followed by an even more unsettling act: He seized the baby’s penis between his own forefinger and thumb. The description of the doctor’s fascination—as if he’d just discovered a lovecharm hidden in his grandmother’s linen—conveys both the speaker’s revulsion and her awareness of something grotesquely misplaced in his touch.

Throughout the poem, the mother’s silence is as haunting as the doctor’s actions. When she finally speaks—I called and told him I was bleeding bad. He told me not to worry.—her words are distant, in a far flat voice, a tone that suggests resignation rather than shock. The father, unaware of the loss, enters the scene with a joyful strut, creating an unbearable moment of dramatic irony. The speaker’s guilt is palpable in her regret over how she broke the news—I told him all wrong. The realization that she would do it differently, given the chance, underscores the helplessness of bearing witness to harm without the power to prevent it.

The final confession—I have never told the whole truth. Forgive me.—is an acknowledgment of complicity, not in the doctor’s violence, but in the silence that allowed it to continue. The repetition of It was my first job, and I was lost in it brings the poem full circle, revealing that her initial stupidity was not a lack of skill but a failure to act against wrongdoing.

Waring’s poem is a searing indictment of both individual cruelty and systemic failure, using unembellished, declarative language to lay bare the speaker’s haunted conscience. The lack of stanza breaks creates a relentless, inescapable rhythm, much like memory itself, which refuses to be compartmentalized. The free verse structure, with its fluid yet fragmentary recollections, mirrors the way trauma is processed—unevenly, with moments of clarity punctuated by long stretches of silence. The poem does not offer closure, only confession, leaving the reader to bear the weight of the speaker’s guilt and the suffering she could not prevent.

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