Joy Harjo’s poem  “Perhaps the World shall End Here” develops the idea that the conversations held at the kitchen table are related to important stages in life. Throughout the poem each stanza discusses a different aspect of life, although this is not discussed until after signaling the importance of the table in which Harijo stated  “The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.” Relating the kitchen table to the world and the activities done at the table as the necessity to live emphasizes the table’s role. In one stanza it’s said that “ It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.” The discussion that will shape children into the people they will become takes a serious and important tone of conversation which then goes on to develop the idea of the kinds of conversation that take place at the kitchen table.The poem then goes on to describe different aspects in life related to love,loss,anger and grief to then end on the unexpected probabilities regarding the end of the world.Harjo characterizes the end of the world as another event that will take place at the kitchen table once again emphasizing the table and conversations held at it. 

-Kayla Ortiz

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