Poetry Precis 15- "She Didn't Mean to Do It" by Daisy Fried

"She Didn't Mean to Do It" is a poem in which Daisy Freed uses a sarcastic tone and repetition as tools to convey a message about excuses. Throughout the poem, a picture is painted of someone who acts in a disorderly manner or who experiences "certain thrills". But even before this person is described, the first two lines of the poem are an excuse as they read "Oh, she was sad, she was sad, she didn't mean to do it". Next, the poem goes into some detail about this person's uncontrollable actions as a result of the strength of her sadness saying "Certain thrills knock you flat on your sheets on your bed in your room", not giving the subject ownership of her thrills but instead, discussing them in a way that makes them seem like she cannot stop them. By the end of the poem, the speaker has showed the common practice of humans to simply use dumb excuses like being "sad" as a way to justify ones actions. The repetition of "Oh, she was sad, she was sad, she didn't mean to do it" puts emphasis on this idea of excuses, showing how one can blame another's actions on their feelings.