Just as the "room" (soul) can represent a woman's "womb," so can a new poem be viewed as newborn child. In one of McGuckian's poems, "East of Mozart," a newborn (a new poem) is delivered to the world in "an outsize envelope" so that her words, created with "blood and ink," may be experienced by others. (O'Neill, 71)
Why is there this why? When every room
Expresses a state of mind,
And I am in the same room as last February,
Where August somehow lodged itself,
And autumn's small sum now meets
As much of my own blood and ink
As will fit into an outsize envelope.
This excerpt also expresses the "sameness" of every room if we do not try to understand the space of the room itself--the "state of mind," or the unconscious. We must de-layer the room, and move through the seasons, to discover the individuality, the creativity, and the poetry that lies at the core. In this stanza, the narrator discovers herself within the child she produces as well as the poetry she writes.