The last line caught me off guard: "Everything, he said, is a way of remembering." This lie is the most true. Everything we do is engrained in our knowledge of what worked in the past. Every response to a situation has been experimented before; everything has been said before. As writers, all we can do is try to say something old in a new way. In her reflection of her dead father, without out-right announcing his death, Yi-Mei Tsiang manages this with evocative images and an account of true lies.
Even if a memory is not real, it can still be true. The ironic truth of this poem is that it is completely comprised of lies. Yi-Mei Tsiang popped this poem out of a writer's workshop full of constraints that somehow begot this simple masterpiece. For me, the beauty of this poem is in the organic descriptions and the flowing, dream-like storyline.
The last line caught me off guard: "Everything, he said, is a way of remembering." This lie is the most true. Everything we do is engrained in our knowledge of what worked in the past. Every response to a situation has been experimented before; everything has been said before. As writers, all we can do is try to say something old in a new way. In her reflection of her dead father, without out-right announcing his death, Yi-Mei Tsiang manages this with evocative images and an account of true lies.
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Remember the days when Pluto was a planet? Warrener certainly does, with a touch of reflection on her own life. Warrener has had an interesting life in her transition between an American backyard childhood to Tokyo's back streets. The poem is a game of hopscotch that carefully plays with innocence and revelation, especially in the reminiscing of the (truly morbid) childhood song Alouette. "Who knows why/we call to mind these/moments or how." The ironic twist of this poem is that Pluto was never really a planet. Warrener wonders if her memories are a reflection of her true past, or if her nostalgia is not entirely accurate. Perhaps we look at when Pluto was a planet in the same we were view our own past through rose-coloured glasses. The main question behind this poem is whether or not we will create anything meaningful for the next generations to remember us. Or will our lives, as Pluto's status as a planet, become obsolete?
Although the title of this piece is lacking a certain "oomph," the lines that follow atone for the hollow name. Streetview Google maps, surveillance cameras in elevators, and Instagram photographs hold brief moments of blurry ghosts. Our technology preserves us past our due date. YouTube will outlive all the instant stars it creates; I am still friends with dead classmates on Facebook. Solie's thought-provoking stanzas are full of evocative images. Phrases such as "disused curling rinks" and "would we simply burn them, the sites of wreckage" bring me back to an eerily-deserted amusement park in Berlin, left exactly as it was before it was abandoned. Solie touches on ideas of nostalgia, abandonment, and inevitable change that accompanies growing up. With clever word choice and a heavy theme, this poem is certainly worth the read.
Steffler's poem reveals the contradictory nature of society's values. The title of this piece suggests that this will be a cheesy poem about how "all we need is love," yet the first stanza speaks of a fatal flaw in our values. Because our "brains and hearts need to be nearly mush, the greatest currencies have all been versions of flint." We see this everyday - in the idolization of gold, the adoration of silver, and the acclaimed quality of crystal. We are a generation obsessed with money and the weapons that eventually kill us.
Steffler suggests that perhaps our mental weapons are of greater damage that any alloy we can "claim." He ends the poem with this rapidly repeating defect of culture: the desire to own everything. Greed begets greed, and want begets want. Enough is never enough... As I read Sinclair's words, I can picture myself, clammy fingers clasped around a steaming coffee mug, stressed forehead pressed against the cool glass window that overlooks my backyard where young deer come to devour my garden. The smallest noise will startle them - so I stand perfectly still, and so do they, deep eyes shot to mine when they hear my shallow breathing. This poem is a reflection of our vie to hold on to those who have passed. It's something we can't help doing, even if we know they are physically gone. It is a mourning poem, and inasmuch it doesn't always make sense. Neither does death. In the second section, Sinclair strains to see the dead in the light, in the deer, in anything concrete to hold on to. In the third she admits "there is no such thing as the dead." because they are truly gone. Sinclair relinquishes her previous hopes and begins to accept the truth: "And that's what hurts./The clarity." We are thrown into this poem, perhaps similar to the way Munro's husband suddenly slipped into Alzheimers. The first line is truly a continuation of the title, an interesting stylistic choice that I think works well with the subject matter. The strength of this poem is rooted in its clear, progressing storyline. Upon first read, I assumed the speaker was a young child, watching the conglomerated street from a horse-drawn carriage or tour bus on a new adventure. My assumptions were based on my favourite lines: "We rode at the pace of royalty./As if we'd built a cathedreal." The street comes to life, fresh and new and beautiful, but mostly full of diverse cars. As the poem progresses, the speaker learns (or re-learns) the way that adults view the world: simple and task-orientated, full of "dogs and children, store reusable grocery bags." This poem is especially powerful when taken in context of the inspiration behind Munro's writing: her husband's suffering of Alzheimers.
I cannot count the number of nights I've lain awake, staring at my ceiling, trying to convince myself I should be navigating Dreamland. Matwichuk captures this perturbing feeling skillfully and crafts it into a witty poem that is convincing, albiet a bit incomplete. The lines of the poems are squished together into the paragraph (or prose) form that so attracts me, due to its clarity and readability. In fact, this poem could easily be disguised as prose. Without staggering line breaks, the poem reads smoothly and has an eerie calming affect, despite the restless subject matter. There is no clear conclusion to the issue of insomnia, just a simple restating of the pertaining problem, making the piece seem unfinished. Still, I find the vivid images ("TV fills with snow," "small bells of your keychain through the fog") and drifting thoughts relatable and comforting.
The stanzas in this poem read as if woven together, which is a brilliant parallel to its subject matter. In 5 stanzas of 4 lines each, Matthews takes two monotonous ideas - mice and knitting - and literally sews them together to spark a new idea. As a reader, I would appreciate necessary background or physical description on the omnipresent "she" who knits these mice. I was surprised to find a male poet behind this piece; it reads distinctly feminine to me. Much of the meaning of this poem is left to personal interpretation. To me, the process of accepting the imperfections of the mice reveals the necessity in reaching beyond toleration and passionately loving those around us: our children whom we create, strangers that we meet, and, hardest of all, ourselves, for exactly who we are.
Fraser carefully constructs a roadtrip for the reader that shoots us back to our childhood memories. Although the poem starts off bouncy ("all smiles") there is an undertone of bored conformity that all readers can relate to. This trip is expected, routine, and well-routed, and though the speaker is content, they are not necessarily happy.
The poem spouts out beautiful descriptions such as "elm-green trees," which, although fantastic, are not congruent with the conversational flow of the subsequent lines. The simple tone of "we are drunkenly/comfortable with each other" and "We are mother/and father, and not, well you know" give strength to this otherwise ordinary piece. My favourite line is the very last, which hints at something greater stewing in the speakers mind: "Only the beach/is where it wants to be." Anne Carson's poem plucks on our heartstrings as she reminds readers of the supernatural way inanimate objects manage to hold the life their owners once occupied. Scents, images, sounds, but most of all, physical items, can be the most wonderful and most difficult reminder of the ones we've lost. Carson transforms the cardigan into words as she struggles to express the pain she endured as her father succumbed to the disorientation of dementia. The deteriorating lines progress from lofty descriptions ("moonbone in the sky") to sharp images ("riding backwards.") In my opinion, the poem loses some of its depth in the fluffy descriptions. I think it would function better if it contained more raw, vivid images and less intrinsic adjectives.
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