Thursday, July 31, 2008
Peel
Somewhere this rain hitting your window
is a man
crushing leaves
in his palm.
Somewhere those leaves burn like a lantern
as they swing
in the wind
before dawn.
Somewhere that wind is a gypsy's ghost
selling dust
back to earth
for a song.
Somewhere the earth that swallowed Father
is the girl
giving birth
to your son.
Somewhere your son sleeping beside you
hears rain hit
your window
and he's gone.
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2 comments:
Hey, Dann. This poem, like the one above it, is fucking beautiful. Really this is top notch work. They both seem to take a different direction from most of your writing that I have read. They seem less detached, as subject matter, from you, as the writer. They're also less abstract and much more accessible.
The only problem I have is with the last stanza, which breaks the rhythm. I don't feel like there's any reason to do that.
I agree, this is a real poem. I think that the extended first line and the refrain of "Somewhere" has this moored effect on the pace and helps keep this poem tense, partitioned, and at the precipice of some grander vision. It's the minutia happening under these long lines that really pumps the blood. It's good. It's really good.
The meter reaches-- not quite iambic pentameter, not quite iambic dimeter. The reach here lies in the anapestic rhythm. I think that's why ty weston here experiences that suddenly jarring effect of iambic meter on the last stanza, but I rather like that. We don't want to stay with the lull of the passing metaphors. We want this person, this obligatory "you" character to come out from behind the devices you've so nicely crafted. And the rhyme-scheme is subtle and still so musical. Aint no antediluvian cheese stinking up your rhymes. I think this poem is bawlin'.
Parts I'm not so sold on (so that this comment isn't just some useless ornament):
I think my least favorite stanza is the second one partly because I'm so engaged by the first stanza. You've too soon made the leap for a more direct and unique image, which is okay, but to have it come after and before two ubiquitous elements (rain & wind) leaves me wondering the significance of the leaves because in my mind I'm thinking "fire" since already there's rain, wind, and earth. But then this seems to be a trope on burial and heritage so I'm left back with those burning leaves.
Another problem: this is the only line with a simile. The closest comparison, the gypsy ghost wind, works because of how it ties in with the decay and the burial. I understand that the man is crushing leaves, that the leaves are then picked up by the wind, but it's the burning and it's the lanterns that I'm not sure about. I like what they're doing, how they're carried through the poem, but I suppose I'd like to see the first line of that stanza reworked so that the burning and the leap to lanterns beat smaller in the subsequent lines. These syncopated short lines bear the brunt of the action. Maybe if you had this line be something like "Somewhere those leaves swinging in the wind..." and then allowed for the burning and the lanterns, I'd be down without question.
"Somewhere the earth that swallowed Father"-- I'm sensing Faulkner somewhere here and I like that. It's "Father" that makes me stop in my tracks, that alarms the reader to think about the sudden specificity. I like that, we need "Father" here. With that said, the next line, an important line, gets swallowed up too but not the way it should. It's like this quicksand effect-- "Father" is a defining and suddenly possessive word and yes, it sucks you in. Then "is the girl" comes and it doesn't share the power of the first stanza's similar declaration "is a man" because there's so much suction, so much weight with such a pairing of "swallowed Father." So it's struggling on the cusp of that gesture.
But again, I think this poem is solid everywhere else. These are small things I noticed. This is good. Very good.
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