Poetry Mixtape #5: Of The Body, Of the Mother, Of the Mind

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Many poets write about the body. Or the mind. Or their mothers. But today’s poem by Robin Ekiss (from her wonderful book The Mansion of Happiness) combines the three elements in a simple and powerful way. Read the poem and then we’ll talk.

The Question of My Mother

BY ROBIN EKISS

The question of my mother is on the table.
The dark box of her mind is also there,
the garden of everywhere
we used to walk together.
*
Among the things the body doesn’t know,
it is the dark box I return to most:
fallopian city engrained in memory,
ghost-orchid egg in the arboretum,
*
hinged lid forever bending back and forth —
open to me, then closed
like the petals of the paperwhite narcissus.
What would it take to make a city in me?
*
Dark arterial streets, neglected ovary
hard as an acorn hidden in its dark box
on the table: Mother, I am
out of my mind, spilling everywhere.
***
Both the yearning and the biology of motherhood are apparent in the poem – fallopian cities, ghost eggs, neglected ovaries – and the speaker seems to be mourning.  (These things are in the box, but the speaker has them opened to her and then closed.) Is the mother’s “question” one about the speaker’s choices about motherhood? The title “of” is even ambiguous – is it a question about the mother or a question that the mother poses?
The thought that the inner workings of a body are a city is my favorite image in the poem.  (I have even written a poem based on the line “What would it take to make a city in me?”) To imagine cities inside the body while the mind is a dark box is a juxtaposition that also intrigues.
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I cannot say that I could explain, line by line, how to interpret this poem exactly, and I don’t necessarily want to do so. My own background of infertility contributes to my interpretation of this piece, while another reader may see a completely different narrative. What I can explain is my admiration for the poet’s work in this piece. There is much to admire: the parallel construction of the first two lines (which are strong enough to bear the often-overused “blank-OF-blank” metaphorical structure), the sounds in the third and fourth lines of the second stanza, the rhythmic images of the ghost-orchid egg and the petals of the paperwhite narcissus, the aching madness of the final line of direct address.
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We can, as writers, tend to over-analyze and dissect in the urge to find “an answer.” This is one of my favorite poems of the past few years partly because something about it remains just out of reach, outside the frame of the photograph, waiting to be discovered.
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IF YOU WANT TO WRITE:
  • Try choosing three common poetry topics and addressing them slant in a single poem, as Ekiss does with body, mind and mother.
  • Use “The Question of my _______________” as a title for a new poem.
  • Use a sentence of direct address as the ending line of a poem.

Poetry Mix Tape #4: All Lies and Jest

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Every four weeks, something a little different will hit the mix tape: actual song lyrics. As a teenager, the first poetry I wrote was in the form of song lyrics, using my lame guitar-playing skills and my fairly solid vocal ones to create anthems to unrequited love and other such teenage subjects.  Song lyrics are the first poems many of us learn as children – and for some people, lyrics ARE the poetry of their lives.

I was lucky enough to be introduced to Simon and Garfunkel by my father at an early age, and you cannot find songwriters much better than Paul Simon.  One of my earliest favorite Paul Simon lyrics is for the song “The Boxer.” I have taken the liberty of relining the lyrics below:

I am just a poor boy, though my story’s seldom told.

I have squandered my resistance

 for a pocket full of mumbles such are promises.

All lies and jest, still a man hears what he wants

 to hear and disregards the rest.

 

When I left my home and my family, I was

no more than a boy in the company

 of strangers, in the quiet of the railway

 station running scared, laying low, seeking

out the poorer quarters where the ragged

 people go, looking for the places

only they would know

 

Asking only workman’s wages, I go looking

for a job, but I get no offers-just a come-on

from the whores on Seventh Avenue. I do declare,

 there were times when I was so lonesome,

I took some comfort there.

 

Now I’m laying out my winter clothes

and wishing I was gone – going home

where the New York City winters aren’t

bleeding me, bleeding me – going home

 

In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter

by his trade, and he carries the reminders

of every blow that laid him down or cut him

‘til he cried out in his anger and his shame

 “I am leaving, I am leaving”

but the fighter still remains.

 

This is definitely a poem, if for nothing else but the brilliant line “a pocket full of mumbles such are promises.” Though some may say that the story of the downtrodden boy who moves to the big city is overdone, the metaphor of the boxer makes it more than that, and the rhythmic participial phrases in the second verse (all those wonderful –ing words), the subtle alliteration (“workman’s wages”, “winter clothes and wishing”), and the different depictions of longing in each stanza (especially the fourth) also make it a lovely piece of writing that stands on its own without the harmonies and the haunting li la li chorus.

If You Want to Write:

Try taking some of your favorite song lyrics and relining them as poems – to see if you find poetic elements in them when they are stripped of their music. Or use a favorite line of song lyric as a title or a first line for a new poem.

 

Post-Getaway Post

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Last weekend, I spent another successful writing weekend in New Jersey at Peter Murphy’s Poetry and Prose Getaway, this year at the beautiful Seaview Resort. It was a weekend packed with new writing, workshops, panels, readings, and good friends as well. Kristin LaTour traveled with me this year, and we met up with kickass poet and Reflex partner Rachel Bunting for a weekend of good laughs, good food and even better writing.

I had productive, insightful workshops with James Richardson and Laure-Anne Bosselaar and spent time talking poetry and life with my mentor, friend and amazing poet Douglas Goetsch. Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Dunn gave a reading from his work Sunday night, celebrating a new limited edition chapbook of his poems and a retrospective museum display about his career and revision process in the hotel’s branch of the local Noyes Gallery and Museum. And, as one of the highlights of my weekend, I had my butt properly whupped at several games of ping pong by Mr. Dunn and Doug Goetsch on Friday night in the game room. (I will have to practice for next year…)

As usual, Peter’s prompts and the electrifying atmosphere gave me several new and exciting drafts. I also learned a new and extremely effective discussion technique that I can’t wait to try out on my seventh graders. The Getaway never fails to amaze.

If you want to get a hand on Peter’s prompts without the traveling, his new book of prompts and poems inspired by them is called Challenges for the Delusional. Get your hands on it if you love delicious, complicated prompts that can be used over and over again. I cannot wait to go back.

Poetry Mix Tape #3: Because the Night

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One never forgets a first crush: shy smiles and shaky knees and a desperate yearning to be noticed. My first poetry crush would have to be Robert Frost. Now, judging from the photo above, you wouldn’t think that old Frost would have what it takes to make a girl weak in the knees. However, his naturally cadenced rhymes and visions of the natural world gave him a special place in my young poet’s heart.

Yes, I probably first read “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” or “The Road Not Taken,” but my favorite Frost poem is “Acquainted With The Night.”

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain — and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
A luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night. 

There are many reasons that it is my favorite. One is its form. Although it is a sonnet, it doesn’t announce itself as such due to Frost’s decision to break each stanza at three lines instead of four. It was the first sonnet I encountered other than Shakespeare, and the use of natural language within this formal structure was a revelation at the time.

It is also one of the first poems I read that gave me an understanding of tone – I think it is one of the loneliest poems I have ever read, especially the interrupted cry that is not for the speaker. I could picture that solitary figure stopping to turn at a sound that just might be a tender voice calling out in that dark night.

When I started writing again in my twenties, I initially turned to form, and Frost was there as a mentor.  I am happy to say that I have been acquainted with his work.

 

 

If You Want to Write:

Write a traditional sonnet whose stanzas are broken in a non-traditional way. Or write a “modern” sonnet that does not rhyme but follows the other directives of the form. Or experiment with tone – create a scene for your reader that evokes melancholy or terror or peace.