Saturday, April 10, 2010
What the Living Do
What the Living Do, by Marie Howe, has been one of my most recent and amazing reads. Her book recalls other poet's works concerning loss and death, such as Elizabeth Bishop's. In particular, I am reminded of Bishop's "One Art," which can be found in The Complete Poems, 1927-1979. This poem, like the ones found in What the Living Do, encapsulates the loss of a loved one within the every day routine. The narrator states, "Lose something every day. Accept the fluster / of lost door keys, the hour badly spent." The poem culminates with the loss of the loved one. In this stanza, the narrator reveals her true feelings regarding loss: "It's evident / the art of losing's not too hard to master / though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster." Howe's poems employ a similar technique. Rather than devolving into sentimental cliches, the poems focus on the every day happenings that occur in the midst of, or in spite of, the presence of death. In these poems, every day moments, such as lovers fighting and school assignments, become extraordinary through the introduction of the uncommon element of death. This element is never shocking; rather, the tone regarding death is almost completely flat, recalling the tone found in the final lines of Bishop's poem. For example, in the poem "Late Morning," the narrator remembers a morning spent with her lover: "[W]e sat like that for a few minutes, without saying much of anything, / my cheek pressed lightly / against his [James] cheek, and my brother John was dead." This statement could be jarring, but the reality is that death dwells in the midst of life. The poem exhibits this truth when it returns to the actual moment of sitting with her lover and to the remembrance of the miniscule details, such as the "crumbs and dishes still / on the table, and a small glass bottle of milk and an open jar of / raspberry jam." Thus, everything, from a bottle of milk to lost door keys, becomes attached to life, loss, and death.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment