“The Joy of Writing”
Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?
For a drink of written water from a spring
whose surface will Xerox her soft muzzle?
Why does she lift her head; does she hear something?
Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth.
she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips.
Silence—this word also rustles across the page
and parts the boughs
that have sprouted from the word “woods.”
Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page,
are letters up to no good,
clutches of clauses so subordinate
they’ll never let her get away.
Each drop of ink contains a fair supply
of hunters. equipped with squinting eyes behind their sights.
prepared to swarm the sloping pen at any moment,
surround the doe, and slowly aim their guns.
They forget that what’s here isn’t life.
Other laws, black on white, obtain
The twinkling of an eye will take as long as I say,
and will, if I wish, divide into tiny eternities,
full of bullets stopped in mid-flight.
Not a thing will ever happen unless I say so.
Without my blessing, not a leaf will fall,
not a blade of grass will bend beneath that little hoof’s full stop.
Is there then a world
where I rule absolutely on fate?
A time I bind with chains of signs?
An existence become endless at my bidding?
The joy of writing.
The power of preserving.
Revenge of a mortal hand.
I thought this poem is such a great way to begin a volume of poetry. A poem about the joy of writing and the life it can bring about. The most important element of the poem is the personification of inanimate objects, especially letters and words. A word “rustles across the page,” bullets stop in mid-flight, and boughs sprout from the word “woods.” This is an illustration of the power of writing to inspire and bring life. It’s amazing how she can create this vivid imagery of such a fanciful subject: letters “rustling” letters and hunters of ink aiming at a pen. We mention concrete imagery often in class and previous to reading this poem I always assumed that meant the imagery had to be of something realistic. I can now see how one can create lively imagery of such a fantastic event.
Also notice how three of the first four lines end in question marks and three of the last six lines end in question marks, yet in between them there are none. The first three ask legitimate questions that are answered in the ensuing plot but the last three are really rhetorical questions that raise very important issues to a writer. I think she is showing how ultimately the joy of writing leads to powerful questions about the nature of writing itself. She seems to conclude that the joy of writing is in the power that the author/poet holds in creating his or her fictional worlds. She says “Without my blessing, not a leaf will fall,” “Not a thing will ever happen unless I say so,” and “a blade of grass will bend beneath that little hoof’s full stop.” That’s a power trip if I’ve ever seen one!
Personification and metaphor are the dominant elements of this poem. The word in the beginning is compared to a doe prancing across a page. Not only is it an inanimate object being given animate qualities (personification), it is also being compared to something very unlike itself (metaphor).
No comments:
Post a Comment