Analysis of Susan Musgrave's poem 'You Didn't Fit'

The poem “You Didn’t Fit” is a written letter from a woman to her deceased father. It talks about how he would never “fit in” to anything, about his uniqueness and how he wouldn’t follow the norms.

The poem does not have any rhyme to it. It is a free rhythm because the stanzas do not have a special form; they are varying of volume and form.

Stanza one is an intro to the story, you get a sense of what’s going on. The father is dead, he won’t fit in his coffin, and he has never fitted into anything.

Stanza two then goes in depth with a specific situation where he wouldn’t fit in. He wouldn’t pay for a dentist bill because he didn’t think that he got what he paid for and ends up in court. The last two lines ends with “death with a bright face and teeth that fit perfectly”. The writer actually tells us that there is a reason why that story came, it wasn’t just a coincidence. She describes the fear that she had for losing her father at that time now has become a reality and that in death he’ll get the teeth that he could never get alive.