This is a very new poem, and I don't think it needs much feedback as of yet, so feel free to be brief. I'm going to ask for only positive feedback at this point, since it's at the wet paint stage. I'm always interested in the question of what's at stake, so if you feel moved to answer that one regarding this poem, please do!
Thanks, everyone (and happy holidays),
Kasey
P.S. I'm working very slowly on a series of litanies, of which this is part.
Litany (Somehow)
Under the windowsill a few
strands
of old spiderweb move
& move, & though I
can’t
feel the air moving, it must
be, & though
I can barely see the snow,
it’s falling now,
gauze & slant, & for
once
I don’t want to say it’s like
anything else: just snow,
singular
& pure, & the woods,
too, the winter-stripped
trees revealing their
simplest selves. I’ve read
they talk to one another,
somehow, through nets
of roots blooming where we
can’t see. Somehow trees,
lichen, stone. Somehow my
hand, this pen, & blood
again this month, though
sometime soon it will
cease. Bleached winter
grasses at the field’s edge
before bricks & oaks rise
up, & how
I love the borders best,
weeds by the side
of the road silvered &
sharpened
in headlights. Somehow Lucinda
Williams’ song
“Side of the Road,” & how
its words
understood the way I would
love you even before
we met. The things we know
before we know them. Somehow
snow, still, even
now, making its essential
silence which is
a kind of sound. &
somehow my young mother
driving home decades ago
& hearing for the first time
“The Sound of Silence” on the
radio, before
it was famous, before I was
born—listening
& then turning into the
driveway & turning
off the engine, opening the
door of the car & the door
of the house & finding
my father waiting there &
saying to him
I just heard the most
beautiful song.
Kasey, this is a very lovely poem. What's at stake, it seems to me, are the very underpinnings of poetry... metaphor- its use and misuse, and what we know before we know we know it (to paraphrase the poem). The poem seems to be probing the 'essential silence which is a kind of sound' from which all poetry springs. I especially love "gauze & slant" and "silvered & sharpened" which have the quality of "itness" that the poem is alluding to. (I hope you'll forgive the unacademic vocab I am using.) The last line has a sort of unbearable wistfulness which I also love.
ReplyDeleteLove the meditative, sitting-still quality of this poem. I imagine it uttered in one sitting, the speaker in front of a window; it seems like it is intended to capture the ruminations of a particular moment in a particular human's life. Seems to be trying to find words for some things that are outside of time and some things that are very much subject to time (bodies), negotiating the existence of both of those in the world, and perhaps the border between them. That line really resonated, "how / I love the borders best..." Also, <3 Lucinda Williams and that song particularly!
ReplyDeleteHi Kasey,
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful poem. I'm especially moved by the intimate, believable use of the lyric "I"--as in lines such as "I’ve read
they talk to one another, somehow" and "I love the borders best." I trust this speaker, so that when the poem turns to the more public "we," I follow happily and lean in to the wisdom of the poem. So often, these moves don't really work, and here they do! Wonderful work!
Kasey, this is such a gorgeous poem! It flows so beautifully, as a litany should, and the ampersands heighten that *spilling* quality. What's at stake? For me, this poem seems to be wondering at life itself: how easy it would be not to be here and at the same time, how inevitable it is that we are. That fine line. "Somehow my hand, this pen, & blood/again this month". I like the speaker's tone of certainty, even in the face of such mystery — "I don't want to say it's like/anything else: just snow", "I love the borders best", and "the things we know/before we know them". The last six lines, with their blow-by-blow description of the young mother moving from car to home, is very effective. I like to think that *you*, Kasey, are the "most beautiful song"!
ReplyDeleteKasey, This poem is so full of movement and vitality. Normally, I'm not crazy about ampersands since they can seem arbitrary, but here they seem so so right! The line endings are working especially well for me in creating a sense of passion and dynamism. At Warren Wilson, Martha Rhodes talked about the “accordion” method of revision that might be interesting to play with (just as a suggestion when/if you revise). What if this poem were only 5 lines? Which ones would you keep? And what if the poem where a full 3 pages? It might be fun to take the poem in both directions to see what you get. Thanks for sharing this lovely work.
ReplyDelete