The Paris Review emails me a daily poem. Some of them I get but many of them I don’t. It’s not that I don’t like poetry but
sometimes it seems that people are trying to hard to be obscure or academic.
Perhaps I’m too plebian. I listen to hip-hop
and can find poetry there in the rhythm, placement, irony,
and inventive use of common memes. That’s not to say I could make a steady diet
of it or that it’s all so wonderfully
poetic.
I am put off by poems that make use of the
empty white space on the page. Like if
there’s some sensation of flight and the words of the poem are placed so as to
configure a bird or a plane. Or maybe a
cat figure forms the pattern for word placement.
Fact is, I don’t need it.
If the image is expressed , I can imagine the cat
myself. Maybe a different cat, maybe a better one.
So in the latest poem sent to me, there are images of a
scorpion. I’ve seen scorpions. If you
say scorpion, I see them in my mind’s eye. I don’t need to see the words
slithering (yes, I know scorpions don’t ‘slither’) on the page as they do in “ Monsoon by Eduardo
C. Corral:
|
Scores
of scorpions honey-bright scorpions twist counter- clockwise around my body saw-toothed pincers shred my jeans & shirt when I’m stripped completely all but two scorpions stop clattering they scramble up my left arm & shoulder press tack- sharp legs against the arteries in my neck I slowly reach for them expect a few bloody sparks but instead of scorpions my thumb troubles two warm letters initials his initials the scorpions rattle twist clock- wise this time saw-toothed pincers cut into my skin I refuse I refuse to speak his name the scorpions honey-bright come to a halt raise their tails a bead of poison glints on the tip of each stinger the small bones in my tongue break it starts to rain |
No comments:
Post a Comment