Paula Bohince's "Nostalgic"

Paula Bohince's "Nostalgic" first appeared in Southwest Review, but I picked it up a few days ago at Verse Daily.  I've never read Bohince before, and I must say I'm at a bit of a loss when it comes to understanding "Nostalgic."  According to the title, we're dealing with the past, with loss.  According to the language of the poem, we're working with birds, place, and love.

"Nostalgic" is a short, 3-stanza poem with lines that range from the short to the very short -- the clipped -- the briefest of which is the one-word last line of the poem, "cloud-headed," and the longest of which is the third line of the poem, "cloistered homage to a decade of geese."  It is a lyric piece although I'm not entirely sure it doesn't tell a story of a leaving...from what I'm unsure.  This could be a love (forlorn love) poem, as there is a "we" in it that definitely doesn't include me, and uses language like "kiss" and "departure" and "In the end," which taken together can suggest love gone awry.  But I also wonder of environmental loss: the "robin's / blurred departure," the "homage to a decade of geese," "the marsh / where cattails remained when all else / left."  The question is -- are these images meant to be read literally or metaphorically?  Or both?

Bohince's clipped lines help create this sense of discontinuity.  No pattern of consistent length emerges: some lines stick out, some don't.  As well, many of the lines are so short they disrupt meaning.  Whereas a poet like Billy Collins generally has a complete phrase or thought per line, Bohince breaks her thoughts up across lines in this poem such that rhythmic and cognitive flow are disrupted.  Consider the last stanza:

In the end, we were landmark,
compass, same as the lingered-over
pond, the marsh
where cattails remained when all else
left.  Ragged in salt,
cloud-headed.

All but two lines are enjambed in a way that disrupts immediate meaning-making, though in gestalt they do work together to create sense.  Plus, Bohince has a few nice effects due to her enjambments.  The way "lingered-over" hangs on the stanza's second line does make me linger a moment over the "pond" of the ensuing line.  The tough enjambment at ". . . all else" slams an emphasis on "left," supporting the read that loss/departure are prime components to the story and theme of this poem.

And, the discontinuity of the lines adds to the poem's overall sense of melancholy, darkness.  This mood, of course, is more obviously driven by some of Bohince's choice words: "haunting," "departure," "ragged," "cloud-headed."  I would include "Un-find" in this list as well since it is such a weirdly formed word.  "Un-find" makes me feel so uncomfortable.  I mean -- that's an impossible task.  Once something is found, can it be un-found?  It can be lost, but can it be...ignored?  Sort of like finding Waldo: once you know he's there, it's pretty well impossible to un-know his location, to un-find him on that page of the hidden picture book.

Perhaps this notion of impossibility is at the crux of the poem.  There's this clear sense of letting go, of being ordered to let go, as evidenced by the commands in the second stanza, yet to feel nostalgic is generally an acceptable way to feel.  It is bittersweetly pleasant.  It is a remembrance and longing for a happiness that has been but is no longer.  Perhaps the speaker here has been unable to move forward.  Perhaps she feels fettered by those emotions and their connection to past events necessary to the poem but hidden from its readers.  And if that's the case, then the poem actually struggles against it's title: the speaker does not want to feel this way.

So then, who is being spoken to?  In the first stanza, there is no clear speaker and audience, but the two commands "Un-find" and "kiss" of the second stanza clearly separate the poem into the speaker and the spoken-to.  The third stanza combines them into the we who "were landmark, / compass . . ." Running forward with the relationship read of "Nostalgia," I'm going to say we have a lover who located her place in life according to this past relationship, to a "we" of which she is no longer part.  When the relationship ended, that sense of place vanished with it, as it often does in the world after a seemingly steadfast (to use Bohince's own language) relationship.

While "Nostalgic" isn't my favorite poem in recent months, I do appreciate its tight, constricted lines.  It feels crafted. It controls how I read it down the page, forcing me to wonder about the "right" words and lines...I think.

Cameron Scott's "Evening Hatch"

Finally, after weeks and weeks of trying to write this little quixplication of Cameron Scott's "Evening Hatch" from the The Fly Fish Journal, I've managed to actually complete the task.  Not enough time in the day lately, it seems -- but I'm very happy to have finally jotted down a few words about Cam Scott's poem.  Scott's a friend of mine from the University of Arizona's MFA program.  Every now and then we run into each over the internet and strike up a little conversation.  So -- it's a pleasure to have noticed this poem floating around out there in hyperspace.

"Evening Hatch" is a 3 stanza, first person narrative about a father who sneaks away from his daughter's wedding reception to do a little fly fishing at a nearby river -- the river's within walking distance, close enough to the gala for him to hear "the clink / of glasses as the bride and groom move between tables."  The father is noticeably at home at the river, inferrably uncomfortable at the reception although by the poem's end, when "The world tastes like honey," he's at ease.  It's very much a poem in three parts with each stanza serving a new purpose as we read about the father's comfort at the river and equal discomfort at the reception.

Scott controls this tension and release with his poem's music.  Though the poem isn't metrical per se, it does rely heavily on the iamb to create a controlled, flowing pace and mood.  Much of the first stanza, set entirely at the river, has the iamb as its predominant foot, and its last line is perfect iambic hexameter: "And yes, my shoes, submerged, will smell all year of mud."  The effect is pleasing . . . relaxed.  Because it's been with us now for hundreds of years in one form (no pun intended) or another, the iamb continues to sit easily in the ear.  Too much of it I personally shun (because it's too often done poorly), but a line here and there I find very welcome.  It makes a poem, as it does with the opening stanza of "Evening Hatch," musical and familiar.  Although Scott's poem is not strictly metrical, its play with meter helps lull the reader's ear, just as the river lulls the father-speaker of the poem.

However, Scott opens the second stanza with a rhythmic rat-a-tat: "But here I am anyway . . ."  That dactyl "anyway" throws the rhythm off immediately, and what follows is a bit freer language in terms of rhythmic pattern.  This is accompanied with a shift in imagery.  In the first stanza, we are with the father at the river; in the second stanza, we are placed at the reception, hearing "the clink / of glasses as the bride and groom move between tables."  Although the imagery in the second stanza does eventually return to the river, it never quite gets its rhythmic feet under it -- close, but not quite.  Nor does the father recapture the calm that pervades him in the first stanza when he is physically and mentally at the river simultaneously.  Throughout the second, he occupies two separate spaces: the river where is "casting at dusk" and the reception where "the bride and groom move between tables."

The third and final stanza shifts from arhythmic to rhythmic language as the father physically returns to the reception for the father-daughter dance.  This more or less happens in the third to last line, but takes the rest of the poem to completely satisfy: "as I walk in wet shoes across the room, as if I were tracking flour / from a broken pantry door.  Someone slaps me on the the back.  / My cuffs, unrolled now.  The world tastes like honey."  It seems to me the rhythmic shift back to pattern and flow matches the father's acceptance (that may not be quite right) of his daughter's marriage, of their simultaneous passage into another phase of their lives as marked by the ritual of marriage.  There's a definite sense of tension and release here.  Where the second stanza acted as a disruption of the first's seemingly natural flow, the third stanza recaptures that flow.

The imagery in Scott's "Evening Hatch" does well to hit all five senses, which is great since much of this poem has to do with the outdoors and the comfort the father finds there.  Part of the picture is tactile -- pant-leg bottoms "wet with river water," a "silk tie" -- part of the picture is aural -- "the clink of glasses," "the wandering edge of riffle" -- part is gustatory -- "the taste of honey" -- and much is visual -- "trouser cuffs rolled up," "the branches of a downed tree."  Certain images speak directly to the olfactory sense, too: "my shoes. . .will smell all year of mud" and "the towering cottonwoods" and "the spruce."  The father-speaker of the poem is completely immersed in the natural world for these brief moments of fly fishing at the river while in the distance his daughter's wedding reception carries on.  For awhile, as much as he feels at peace at the river, he seems at odds with the wedding.  But, fishing the "Evening Hatch" helps him come to terms with this life changing event.  By the poem's end, as "someone slaps me on the back," the father is returned to the reception where he claims, "The world tastes like honey."  All is well.  All was a bit discordant, but now all is well.

Cameron Scott's "Evening Hatch" borders on the sentimental perhaps, but its play with sound and picture keep it from completely giving into it.  It's an interesting demonstration of how a person can be in two places at once, then reconvene better off than he was before.

Billy Collins' "Grave"

Neal Conan interviewed Billy Collins on Talk of the Nation last week for Collins' new book of poems, Horoscopes for the Dead.  As always, Collins gave a great interview, like or dislike what he had to say.  Collins has a very smooth, quiet demeanor, and he knows how to answer questions as well as read poems.  Nothing worse than a good on-the-page poet whose performance skill is sub-par.  And, its hard not to appreciate Collins' ideas on poetry at large, that it should be accessible to everyone, not just to poets.  His own work certainly demonstrates he practices what he preaches.

But its precisely for this reason that I've never fallen in love with his poetry.  One of my buddies in grad school said his work was "suburban," that he may be one of America's first "suburban" poets, neither highfalutin and removed nor gritty and involved -- but comfortable, easy, and well, I'm not exactly sure what.  Whether suburban is an accurate description of his work or not, I don't really know.  I've just never been grabbed by his language or his risk taking, which for the longest time I saw as missing altogether.

However, while thinking about what makes Collins a suburban poet, I came to realize his lack of what I consider risk in a poem is one of his risks.  There is a common misbelief that (good) poetry must not only be insightful but difficult.  Much of Collins' work flies in the face of the second half of that notion.  He's wildly popular as a result, at least partially I would argue.  Very few of his poems meander lyrically, are esoteric, require a particularly erudite reader, and pose few literal and metaphorical leaps.  Rather they are often very-heavily narrative (thus easy to follow), prosy (thus easy to read), and full of common language and images he provides in a realistic, as opposed to a surrealistic, fashion (thus easy to understand).

Talk of the Nation provides 4 poems from Collins' new book, Horoscopes for the Dead, on the webpage for the April 6 interview's accompanying article.  I'm taking a look at "Grave" for no other reason than it is the first poem of the batch.  In a nutshell, the speaker in "Grave" is visiting the graves of his dead parents.  He lays down beside them, so to speak, and describes the conversation they have about his new glasses by way of discussing the various "one hundred kinds of silence / according to the Chinese belief."  The mode of this poem is pretty standard for Collins: short narrative, readable language, no difficult metaphorical leaps.  The only undisguised metaphor is the lovely simile in the last line, which compares the "Silence of the Lotus" to "petals."

First, I'm going to consider this poem's pace in its relationship to the poem's ease and readability, its prosiness and its tension.  After all, this poem -- and many of Collins' poems -- may be prosy, but it is not sloppy.  There is a consistency of line that makes the language work and the piece be successful.

"Grave" is composed of three sentences.  The first stretches across four tercets, the last across five, and the middle across one and an extra line.  Each line contains roughly 4 accented beats and is about the same length as every other, last line excepting.  Barely half of these (16) are enjambed and none of them ruthlessly.  In fact, every line maintains an integrity of idea and/or picture, creating a comfortable read for pretty well any reader. While there is no distinct rhythm created by an arrangement of syllables, no meters and ghost meters, the consistent line lengths and their integrity of thought creates a rhythm of its own, thereby controlling pace.  That shortish, middle sentence helps with this, too.  The preceding and ensuing sentences are long, the first a double-complex sentence (I guess you could call it) and the last the same, both made of 2-3 independent clauses and a number subordinate clauses, some of which interrupt the sentence-flow but do so only for the duration of a line.  Consider the third stanza.  The speaker is describing his mother's initial answer to his question, "What do you think of my new glasses", which is silence:

one of the one hundred kinds of silence
according to the Chinese belief
each one distinct from the others,

Collins' two long sentences in "Grave" ramble on a bit, but they are easily readable.  They are conversational, which I also think makes them comfortable.  Because of their construction, their air seems familiar.  And that's no easy feat, considering poetry is about compression and music and prosy poems can too easily become prosaic and dull.  But Collins is a strict task-master of his line; none escape his control.  The only line in "Grave" that sort of breaks this construction is the last line, and that's not because Collins has lost his grip on it.  Simply put, that line sticks out, literally.  But it's the last line of the poem and is designed, I'm sure, to resonate with  readers.  So Collins literally gives it more weight.

The other thing "Grave" has going for it is its use of the inner and outer worlds.  Often I find that prosaic poems get lost in action -- they become a list of actions -- in order to keep themselves going: this happens, then this happens, then this, that, the other, etc.  "Grave" uses action to set the scene, then it moves internally, and we get the speaker's thoughts and reflections.  This keeps the poem in timeless space so much good poetry resides in, keeps it in that place distinctly poetry and not prose.  Thus, "forward" progress akin to plot never occurs.  Instead the poem moves inward, which is where its reward is.

And, as he did with his consistent line, Collins works into and out of his speaker with a clear control.  The basic, straightforward cores of his sentences contain the poem's basic narrative, and if I pull them out, we'll get the basic story: "What do you think of my new glasses / I asked as I stood under a shade tree / before the joined grave of my parents, // and what followed was a long silence / that descended on the rows of the dead / and on the fields and the woods beyond // .... They make you look very scholarly, / I heard my mother say / once I lay down on the ground // and pressed an ear into the soft grass. / Then I rolled over and pressed / my other ear to the ground, // the ear my father likes to speak into, / but he would say nothing, / ..."  That's 14 lines worth of outer world, roughly half of the poem, and it flows perfectly well when put together.  The other 16 lines of the poem are comprised of inner-world data, of info about the different kinds of silence, "according to the Chinese belief," and they are the tacked-on pieces to the sentences.  The result is that the poem is very well balanced between these two worlds, and Collins creates this balance with a consistent construction that is easy to follow: outer-world core sentence, inner-world add-on; outer-world complete, short sentence; outer-world core sentence, inner-world add-on.  The lyric is first grounded in narrative.  Even the least adroit readers will know where things stand.

So a consistency of line and of content, of that shifting from outer experience to inner world, makes "Grave" click.  I haven't read much Billy Collins in a long time, but my recollection of his poems is that they are typically written in a similar way.  Certainly those accompanying Grave per NPR fit the mold.  As a result, they are easy to read and follow whether you are a poet or not, whether you are a reader of poems or not.  You know how to breathe each line, where to pause, where the inflections go, and a dictionary isn't necessary.  Is all this a bad thing?  I personally know some poets who hate this sort of thing in poetry.  But I say accessible, if done well, is successful.