If you were to give the poet one suggestion about how to make the poem more fully itself, what would that be?
Thanksgiving, North Carolina (aka Wood and Metal aka Five Elements)
I am metal you are wood
we would wed
our words:
betrothal
has a nice ring to it
(smoke ensorcelled the non smoker)
I am wood and you are metal
magnetized, demagnetized
wood and metal
demand word and mettle
not to settle for the commonplaces
“of course” “naturally”
when dinner is fast
a feast of thrown elbows, lapsed pieties
a taking stock of developments
in shipbuilding, oil excavation, stainless steel
wood and metal, wood and metal
the tongue wagged
the laggard heart tapped out
rejoinders: rejoin, join, regain joy
my undeclared declaration:
politics is proxy if your issue
is your issue
(I push my chair away from the table)
excuses of the apolitical
do not fly--
further fodder for folderol
there is a steep and airless unrelenting wilderness out back
Father Time lurks there, along with Green Man
barometer is falling, not reassuring
I tried, later on trod tired together with you
into a meadow full of yellow leaves
our slow swirl impeded
any orderly progress from summer to winter
This poem seems to be interested in a relationship with a specific 'you' woven into a larger context of a family holiday with its additional tensions. The opening lines/stanzas seem to inquire into the non-verbal "chemistry" between the I and the you, but then raises the issue of betrothal - to me setting up a tension between the chemical/animal dynamics between romantic partners and the legal/social frameworks that partners exist in. There also seems to be tension in the larger family dynamic at this dinner table from which the speaker pushes her chair back. I get a sense of exhaustion here, exhaustion within the dyad as well as frustration or dissatisfaction with the larger family. I'm drawn to the final image of treading through a meadow of yellow leaves with the partner, swirling and without orderly progress, not settling for commonplaces, but perhaps left unsatisfyingly structureless as a result. As for the one suggestion to make this poem more fully itself, you may consider simplifying a little bit - there are a lot of images and themes introduced here, and while part of the point is a sense of confusion and overwhelm, I think giving a few images/themes more room to resonate would give the poem greater impact. For instance, as between the couple relationship and the family relationship, you could consider more definitively making one foreground and the other background (couple maybe wants to be foreground and family background, and tie the family in with the landscape whereas the couple are visitors to this landscape? but I could be projecting here!). Thank you for the poem!
ReplyDeleteDargie, thank you so much for this perceptive reading of the poem. The foregrounding/backgrounding of the couple vs the family is an excellent point. I'm thinking about your suggestion to simplify alongside Shannon's note about adding more narrative. This has been my struggle... But I'm very grateful for all of these insights!
DeleteHi Vasiliki,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this smart, ambitious poem. I agree that there seem to be many lines of tension, a whole back story to this poem, despite its pared down, rhythmic simplicity. The poem really comes alive for me in the ending--the last two stanzas--where the gorgeous description of the physical scene embraces me in emotion/sensation. So, there is an interesting juxtaposition between the cooler, more cerebral part of the poem and this ending that interests me quite a bit. What would happen if the beginning were tightened up to give this ending more weight? I'm not sure if this will yield your intended result, but it may be worth trying. In any case, thanks so much for sharing this wonderful work!
Ethel, thanks. You are right about the cool/abstract not always melding well with the warmer and more lyrical. It happens in many of my poems. Occasionally I feel I have the balance right, and the poem works. But in this case, I started off quite experimental and then lapsed into overt lyricism. I fear I have overworked the poem, sort of like a piece of clay that is worked over too much and is losing its shape... The beginning here (from 'I to mettle') is a new development. Most of the drafts had a sort of prologue that was even more abstract-- a verbatim listing of strange 5 Elements acupuncture statements: viewing a metallic husband / acquiring a metallic arrow / attachment tending toward metallic shock / confinement tending toward metallic chariot
DeleteVasiliki, I love your sense of wordplay in the opening stanzas. The lines in parentheses serve, for me, as grounding sentences. (I can't help but feel there needs to be just one more of those, somewhere towards the end.) The stanza starting with "when dinner is fast" is a perfect description of a family holiday dinner! It is interesting that the final two stanzas look (longer lines) and feel (more complete sentences) quite different from the rest of the poem. I must admit I get a little lost here, with the introduction of Father Time and Green Man...I wonder if this couple is in agreement to start with, or if they don't disagree because they see the larger picture that is Life/Time/Nature. The yellow leaves totally say "November" to me. I wonder, would a return in some way to the "wood and metal" make any sense in these final stanzas? Or would that be too much? I really love your pared down sensibility, Vasiliki! I tried to channel that in my funeral poem.
ReplyDeleteHi Claire! I'm delighted with your observations. The line in parenthesis is new and perhaps I will consider adding more, rather than dropping it altogether. This is an abridged version, I guess, of the original longer poem. I hesitate to make a narrative explicit, and it seems that all the details have led you and the others to the right conclusions, so that's good... I guess I will keep working on it after all :)
DeleteVasiliki, I'm completely intrigued by this one. Ethel is right to call it smart and ambitious - definitely both. I'm fascinated by the complexity of relationship here - the one between the speaker and partner, and between the speaker and the group. Also agree with everyone that the last two stanzas are strange (in a wonderful way) and moving and beautiful - I also felt the poem come alive for me here, largely thanks to the sharply observed wilderness. Like Claire, I don't understand the Father Time/Green Man references, but this didn't actually bother me - I enjoyed the mystery. Before this, the poem feels a bit more abstract, and I like Dargie's suggestion to simplify - foreground either the relationship with the partner (the poem also feels to me like it is truly about this) or with the rest of the group. It's interesting to me that the poem feels most specific and most alive in those last two stanzas, which do focus on the partner - maybe that is the direction the poem wants to go in (though this could be my own bias)? Thank you for this loveliness!
ReplyDeleteThank you Kasey! It's very helpful that you and Dargie have pointed out that there is a complicated set of relationships here, and so my difficulty with this poem is warranted. I'm feeling a little more patient with myself!
DeleteHi Vasiliki,
ReplyDeleteThanks for this beautiful poem. I agree with what everyone has said above. I wonder what would happen if you started the poem here?
I tried, later on trod tired together with you
into a meadow full of yellow leaves
our slow swirl impeded
any orderly progress from summer to winter.
Sound is working really well in the poem and I admire the ways in which you use sound to convey both a playfulness and something deeper (i.e. what is happening in the relationship between the "I" and the "you). There were times when I thought the sounds detracted from my understanding of the poem’s emotional story (I’m not pointing to a particular moment but referring to the number of rhymes that happen in close proximity to one another). But rather than removing any of them, I wonder if you could offset (or juxtapose is perhaps a better word) these moments of wonderful rhyme with more narrative about the “I” and “you.” So, in short, I’m curious to see what would happen if you made the poem longer. Thanks for sharing this wonderful poem!
Shannon, thank you for this wonderful suggestion of starting with the final stanza. I appreciate the encouragement to add narrative-- this is perhaps where I feel least confident, since my tendency is toward the haiku rather than the confessional.
Delete