The poem Ode to 52 HZ is one of the saddest poems I have ever

encountered. The poem discusses loneliness through the 52 HZ whalea whale

that no one can understand due to the frequency being too high even to other
whales (they have frequencies of 20-40 HZ). What makes this poem grim is the
fact that this whale actually exists in real life. The loneliness felt from the whale
was further escalated when Mary Ann Daher, who is an expert in marine mammal
acoustics and who can possibly devise a way to understand this whale has died.
The only person that could have possibly understood the whale is now gone, thus
the persona asks who will listen to 52 HZ?
The poems reaches a turning point after this line as the personas husband
is mentioned. One keyword found on the 14th line of the poem is Melville, the
author of the novel Moby-dick which ironically had numerous scenes about the
killing of whales. The 14th line says that the husband has only studied Melville,
which includes his novels thus through these facts, one can infer that all that the
husband has studied is the violence against whales. The 16th to 18th line is also
one of the most important lines in the poem as it mentions that the husband is
actually a Japanese American, that they separated because it doesnt always
work out according to kind, and that the persona misses her mother-in-law.
Through these lines it is seen that the 52 HZ whale acts as a parallel to the
persona. The persona like the whale is experiencing loneliness because of their
lack of communication between the other party (the world to the whale and the
husband to the persona). And the only person that could have understood them is
gone (in the case of the whale) or estranged (her first mother-in-law for the
persona) as denoted in the 19th line a frequency I cannot return to.
The line it doesnt always work out according to kind is reflected through
the whale. S/he is a whale however not even his/her kind can understand him or
her which similarly happens to the persona. Even if they are both humans does
not necessarily mean that they can understand each other. This in a sense is ironic
because although they can literally understand each other they cannot understand
each other in a deeper level. Furthermore, the mention of race is also significant.
The speaker can be inferred to be a Japanese, or has Japanese blood, as saying
tadaima (meaning Im back or I am home) is a Japanese custom. This implies
that there is also a miscommunication between races albeit being humans, and
this is heavily reflected in history. Furthermore, frequency also plays a significant
role in the poem. Frequency in the poem means the frequency of the sound that

can be heard and the frequency of a certain event. In the first half of the poem it is
used to refer to the sound coming from the whale, but in the second half of the
poem it is used to describe event that she missed (i.e. a frequency I cannot return
to) and the way she hopes with frequency.
In the last 8 lines of the poem it heavily talks about the feeling of the whale
and the speaker. The speaker mentions that she is being a Romantic thinking that
the whale cared that s/he is lonely and that he knew of his/her situation that is
why he is crying to humans since his/her own kind cannot hear him/her. But then
you can also think of this part as her projecting or expressing her thoughts and
loneliness. The whale and the persona crying out can imply that they are simply
trying to find somebody or something that can truly understand albeit the
possibility of no one doing so. This reflects our human nature to crave for our
soulmates to complete and understand us. We keep doing so because there is
this slight glimmer of hope that as long as you are alive you might still meet them.
Jiara Laine Montano
R69