I'm going to focus my post on something a little different than usual. I'll get to the content of the books near the end, but I really want to bring up the tangible, physical element of reading this past week's books. In the past few months, I've become increasingly interested in book design. I'm currently taking a design course and have found it a new hobby to find books, which, despite the old adage, can be judged by their covers (so to say). It is hardest to judge poetry books, I feel, because the craft inside can always differ, despite the design. In addition, in the small-press world of poetry, it is hard to use "good" (i.e. high-production) design due to finances and limited printings. Despite this, I feel that the books by Obadike and Bohince lend themselves to design judgment.
Beginning with the cover of Bohince's Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods, it is important to notice the sharp colors and textures used (notice the soft drop-shading of the title - it is the same forest green used on the back cover). There is consistency in the text layout and an ambiguously bold image (consider Lerner's Lichtenberg Figures). Inside the book, details like the embossed maker's page invite the reader in and create the sense that the book at hand has been carefully appended. Likewise, the soft, speckled creme pages add a semi-rustic feel, complementing the content.
Obadike's Armor and Flesh, then, is an extreme away from Bayonet Woods. The cover features a bold, nearly overpowering shade of yellow, with an uncomplementary black text. The text choices on the cover serve as a big indicator of the quality of book design. amd from that the quality of the book can (almost certainly) follow. Compare the back covers of both books. The soft gold lets the forest text set INTO it on Bayonet Woods. On Armor and Flesh, the black text is setting ON the bright yellow, nearly looking like it will slide off of the lacqeur gloss of the cover. And this high gloss is another important note; using the bright yellow only enhances the shine of this finish, and as silly as it seems, interfered with my expereince by being more quick to become cold, creating a negative experience as a reader.
I brought up design last week concerning the in-class version of Ondaatje versus the original version I took out of the Carnegie Library. It was important to note how the narrative was experienced with or without the image of Billy on the cover. I also mentioned the unlikelyhood that Ondaatje had anything to do with the newer cover feat. the Billy image. And it is hard to say just how much input Bohince or Obadike put into the design of their books, but I feel that it is a very important element of how one's work is percieved. I hope that everyone understands this as we work on our manuscripts and in the future thinks about who is handling and what will happen to work that is published.
I agree in large part with many of the sentiments already shared about the work. Much has been made of the female experience/female voice these two poets use. As a male, my experience does differ from these experiences in some way. I viewed Bohince's book as less about a specifically female experience as much as about the father/daughter and generational experience (...how many poems have I read about a baby-boomer dealing with cleaning out a deceased parent's home?) As critical as that jab may be, Bayonet Woods is a good book, that finds its focus in narrative, consistent voice and careful language.
As for Armor and Flesh, the language seemed flat and unresponsive to the poet's whims, forcing Obadike to depend on what Lizzie reffered to as "blatant objective." To close with one last note that depends on my design-premise, it is valuable and reinforces the "blatant objective" when one considers the cover art of Obadike's book - a form entering a second skin, flesh entering into armor, a woman into a man... the same objective-fulfilling image pairs Obadike had to rely on throughout her project.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Bohince/Obadike
Starting with Paula Bohince:
I did enjoy Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods, however I agree with the term "sobering" to describe it. Actually, it was pretty grotesque in parts. Not necessarily employing the same kind of violence that Ben Lerner's book did, but I felt it elicited a very similar emotional reaction. For example, on page 19: "Johnstown" seemed to capture all the essential elements I found within the whole book.
It was consistenly feminine/heavily gendered. She describes a rape, something that is almost always connected to the victimization of a woman (and in this case it is) and the destruction of the feminine spirit/innocence/womanhood. In many of her other pieces I notice the same attempt to destruct the female voice and sexuality. The poem "Pond" also lends itself to this notion of the victimized...for lack of a better word. She starts by saying, Don't be mean to me, which comes off almost childlike, and if not childlike, most certainly womanly in the sense that it's absent of any masculinity at all. She plays into the historical gender roles a lot and yet I did not see any "uprising" or redemption of the female. At times, I thought perhaps Bohince intended for the book to whine a little bit using violent content and imagery (it is successful in this).
Another poem I found very telling was pg. 32 Eating Fish in Pittsburgh. Bohince's commentary on the family and the father/daughter relationship she establishes throughout the book reminds me of Sharon Olds. She unintentionally (or maybe intentionally) digs herself into a role again, but adds nature and the primal tone that nature commands to explain things. For instance: and the rain/the smell of fish oil in my clothes/the bones I kept, as gifts. All very human, very natural images pursuing a kind of nature vs. nurture tone.
As for Mendi Obadike's Armour and Flesh, I'd have to go with Lizzie on this one. I had a hard time with the experience of reading it/ i.e. I felt like maybe it was trying for something it wasn't really achieving. I'm aware of the experimental nature of her and her husband's collaborative work, but maybe because of the lack of supplemental material (ie the photography and videography that I've heard accompanies her poetry), I couldn't get into it. Something about the work seemed flat and unalive, though often I was impressed by the sequencing, for instance "One Black Girlhood" landing in front of "In the Street." Thought this was an interesting choice for the first two poems of the batch because they were so scrappy or something. Gritty? No. Political? I can't pick a word to explain them, but they remind me of vertical prose poems and have plotlines with climaxes. Given the research I'd done on Obadike, I was floored because she is remarked as a renowned artist. I'll be excited to hear how the rest of the class experienced her.
I did enjoy Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods, however I agree with the term "sobering" to describe it. Actually, it was pretty grotesque in parts. Not necessarily employing the same kind of violence that Ben Lerner's book did, but I felt it elicited a very similar emotional reaction. For example, on page 19: "Johnstown" seemed to capture all the essential elements I found within the whole book.
It was consistenly feminine/heavily gendered. She describes a rape, something that is almost always connected to the victimization of a woman (and in this case it is) and the destruction of the feminine spirit/innocence/womanhood. In many of her other pieces I notice the same attempt to destruct the female voice and sexuality. The poem "Pond" also lends itself to this notion of the victimized...for lack of a better word. She starts by saying, Don't be mean to me, which comes off almost childlike, and if not childlike, most certainly womanly in the sense that it's absent of any masculinity at all. She plays into the historical gender roles a lot and yet I did not see any "uprising" or redemption of the female. At times, I thought perhaps Bohince intended for the book to whine a little bit using violent content and imagery (it is successful in this).
Another poem I found very telling was pg. 32 Eating Fish in Pittsburgh. Bohince's commentary on the family and the father/daughter relationship she establishes throughout the book reminds me of Sharon Olds. She unintentionally (or maybe intentionally) digs herself into a role again, but adds nature and the primal tone that nature commands to explain things. For instance: and the rain/the smell of fish oil in my clothes/the bones I kept, as gifts. All very human, very natural images pursuing a kind of nature vs. nurture tone.
As for Mendi Obadike's Armour and Flesh, I'd have to go with Lizzie on this one. I had a hard time with the experience of reading it/ i.e. I felt like maybe it was trying for something it wasn't really achieving. I'm aware of the experimental nature of her and her husband's collaborative work, but maybe because of the lack of supplemental material (ie the photography and videography that I've heard accompanies her poetry), I couldn't get into it. Something about the work seemed flat and unalive, though often I was impressed by the sequencing, for instance "One Black Girlhood" landing in front of "In the Street." Thought this was an interesting choice for the first two poems of the batch because they were so scrappy or something. Gritty? No. Political? I can't pick a word to explain them, but they remind me of vertical prose poems and have plotlines with climaxes. Given the research I'd done on Obadike, I was floored because she is remarked as a renowned artist. I'll be excited to hear how the rest of the class experienced her.
Response to Bohince
In reading Bohince's "Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods" in conjunction with Obedike's "Armor and Flesh," it was impossible for me not to develop an immediate bias on the success of the book, as Bohince so clearly has a greater grasp for not only language but also the mysterious and the enigmatic present within the image. In particular, I found the poem "Johnstown" put this on full display, when she movingly describes a rape victim, "left crumpled in a tree stand/wearing only a muzzle of ice, her mermaid hair frozen/ in wierd angles." The image is incredibly emotionally evocative, drenched in the dark and grotesque; I felt I was reading something out of a Grimm's fairy tale.
I agree with Camiele that this book is very sobering. I think this overall dark and twisted tone deals in direct connection with the themes that tie the book together: Bohince's relationship to her father and her reaction/reflection on his brutal murder (by someone she trusted and cared for), the speaker's doubt in God and the fruits of prayer, as well as the murder of innocence and the violence of the world (most noticably when she is talking about animals, ie. lamb, deer, the cardinal). There is a huge sense of desperation, of the world being cursed (whether we are speaking about Bohince's ancestor's of Bayonet Woods, the current inhabitants of Johnstown, the Easter Lamb). I would have to say, though, the curse falls mainly on the speaker's shoulders. In "Black Lamb," I feel it is the speaker, and not the actual lamb, who is "deep in troublesome clover,/alone, quaking beneath dwarf pines."
After several readings of many of these poems, it is difficult for me not to appreciate the complex mechanics working in this book to create a sense of completeness - the acrostic pieces, the Gospel conceit, the vivid descriptions of rural Pennsylvania, its poverty and tragic history, the speaker's clinging both to her father and to her ancestors, all of whom have shaped her to be "the curse" of what she is (though perhaps this is too negative a description). However, like Camiele, I had mixed feelings as far as the originality/beauty/success of individual pieces. While I certainly despised none of them (what a wonderful contrast to Obedike!), some of them lacked a specific energy that stayed with me after I had finished reading them. An example of this would be "Eating Fish in Pittsburgh," which I felt had more of an "over-dramatic" autobiographical feel to it, revealing details of the speaker's life without giving me much of a greater insight. Also, I was let down by the final piece, which seemed to me very much an "in conclusion" segment attempting to answer all of the reader's questions concerning early ambiguities/conflicts within the speaker. Bohince writes, "But what the Book/omits, what the song, is how He allotted/for each gift one brutality/for balance." While I think this is beautifully worded, it seems a panacea for the speaker's early interactions with God and prayer.
As a first book of poems, I feel the piece succeeded on a large level, at least, interesting me enough to look out for her future work. I feel she might have been feeling out a lot of things within her own work; but I feel many things here as part of a grand experiment, and certainly, a moving narrative.
I agree with Camiele that this book is very sobering. I think this overall dark and twisted tone deals in direct connection with the themes that tie the book together: Bohince's relationship to her father and her reaction/reflection on his brutal murder (by someone she trusted and cared for), the speaker's doubt in God and the fruits of prayer, as well as the murder of innocence and the violence of the world (most noticably when she is talking about animals, ie. lamb, deer, the cardinal). There is a huge sense of desperation, of the world being cursed (whether we are speaking about Bohince's ancestor's of Bayonet Woods, the current inhabitants of Johnstown, the Easter Lamb). I would have to say, though, the curse falls mainly on the speaker's shoulders. In "Black Lamb," I feel it is the speaker, and not the actual lamb, who is "deep in troublesome clover,/alone, quaking beneath dwarf pines."
After several readings of many of these poems, it is difficult for me not to appreciate the complex mechanics working in this book to create a sense of completeness - the acrostic pieces, the Gospel conceit, the vivid descriptions of rural Pennsylvania, its poverty and tragic history, the speaker's clinging both to her father and to her ancestors, all of whom have shaped her to be "the curse" of what she is (though perhaps this is too negative a description). However, like Camiele, I had mixed feelings as far as the originality/beauty/success of individual pieces. While I certainly despised none of them (what a wonderful contrast to Obedike!), some of them lacked a specific energy that stayed with me after I had finished reading them. An example of this would be "Eating Fish in Pittsburgh," which I felt had more of an "over-dramatic" autobiographical feel to it, revealing details of the speaker's life without giving me much of a greater insight. Also, I was let down by the final piece, which seemed to me very much an "in conclusion" segment attempting to answer all of the reader's questions concerning early ambiguities/conflicts within the speaker. Bohince writes, "But what the Book/omits, what the song, is how He allotted/for each gift one brutality/for balance." While I think this is beautifully worded, it seems a panacea for the speaker's early interactions with God and prayer.
As a first book of poems, I feel the piece succeeded on a large level, at least, interesting me enough to look out for her future work. I feel she might have been feeling out a lot of things within her own work; but I feel many things here as part of a grand experiment, and certainly, a moving narrative.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Bohince
The overarching nature of this collection of poetry is one of deep sorrow and almost impending solitude. Each poem draws heavily on the atmosphere that pain and loneliness seem to provide. Meaning, Bohince leaves very little in the way of hope; by the end of the book the soul is left open and raw.
Her imagery is such that even in moments when humour is allowed, and after a torrential downpour of emotional overdrive, necessary, all one manages to glean from it is an overwrought sense of desperation. Though the imagery is vivid and even invites the reader to continue to sift through the drama and find the meat of the poem, on the whole the experience is somewhat of a let down in terms of the desire to immerse oneself in the world of Bohince's characters. Quite simply, I found myself less than intrigued by the characters that show up throughout the book.
Even the obviously Biblical characters of John, Lucas, and Paul left much to be desired in terms of what they could actually do for the book as a whole. Let's be honest, one doesn't use obvious Jesus references unless they want someone to get the idea that these Apostles, as Bohince openly calls them, meant something to the narrator of the book; however, I didn't get the sense that there was much of anything to be taken away from these characters except a few quick jabs of wisdom in the most superficial of ways--these are characters who seem to have a connection to the narrator; however, very little to do with the reader.
As someone whose main goal it is to understand the form and layout of a book, I was intrigued to note the separation of sections. Three sections must mean that there are at least two voltas within the text; however, I didn't notice much of a difference in terms of tone or even content. By tone, I mean there is nothing more to be taken except the inevitability of demise, loneliness, and almost no hope. From the very first poem in which Bohince entreats the attention and adoration of God himself--"Adore me, Lord, / beneath this raw milk sky, your vision / of silvery cream comprising daylight"--there is an incessant somberness in each section. Though, I suppose in terms of focus in the book, the sections serve to allow a change of scenery. The first section flows as does the water with which it is built. Each image is in part a fluid and natural transportation from one poem to the next as in "Spirits at the Edge of Bayonet Woods": "constant swirling, watched her weep beside / the river's illiterate banks, lay her dress upon / its slick grasses, wade into the inch of loam / then lie facedown in its merciful pull." (pg. 18) As I said, the imagery does a great job creating atmosphere and shift in scenery; however, some of the poems take a turn for the melodramatic--case in point: "Spirits at the Edge of Bayonet Woods". There is, and I'm sure Bohince knows and understands this, a difference between drama and melodrama. In fact, I'm sure she does, because in the very next poem, "Johnstown", Bohince finds the medium between the drama of life and the Maudlin nature of soap operas.
Another aspect of the book that I found fascinating: Bohince's use of the acrostic. Now, I'm one to write a vertical lyric now and again. The problem that arises with most acrostics, however, is that they don't say as much as the one vertical line itself. It seemed as though she was trying to create a poem as important to the story as the actual act of the acrostic itself; however, again Bohince leaves much to be desired. Though the imagery is simplistic, the "message" even simpler, Bohince seems to sacrifice a lucid connection from poem to poem for the supposed cleverness of an acrostic. Though an exception is "Acrostic: Geese in Snow" on page 36, even this poem's imagery is ultimately sacrificed for such a lofty and figureless word as "curse"--the poem's final word.
Bohince's poetic imagery and even her desire to create something with deep meaning falls drastically shorter than what I had hoped. However, there are moments when lightening strikes, and it strikes hard. Such poems as "Johnstown", "Quarry", and "Pond" create a breathtaking environment and opens the reader so that the words are raw and very real.
Her imagery is such that even in moments when humour is allowed, and after a torrential downpour of emotional overdrive, necessary, all one manages to glean from it is an overwrought sense of desperation. Though the imagery is vivid and even invites the reader to continue to sift through the drama and find the meat of the poem, on the whole the experience is somewhat of a let down in terms of the desire to immerse oneself in the world of Bohince's characters. Quite simply, I found myself less than intrigued by the characters that show up throughout the book.
Even the obviously Biblical characters of John, Lucas, and Paul left much to be desired in terms of what they could actually do for the book as a whole. Let's be honest, one doesn't use obvious Jesus references unless they want someone to get the idea that these Apostles, as Bohince openly calls them, meant something to the narrator of the book; however, I didn't get the sense that there was much of anything to be taken away from these characters except a few quick jabs of wisdom in the most superficial of ways--these are characters who seem to have a connection to the narrator; however, very little to do with the reader.
As someone whose main goal it is to understand the form and layout of a book, I was intrigued to note the separation of sections. Three sections must mean that there are at least two voltas within the text; however, I didn't notice much of a difference in terms of tone or even content. By tone, I mean there is nothing more to be taken except the inevitability of demise, loneliness, and almost no hope. From the very first poem in which Bohince entreats the attention and adoration of God himself--"Adore me, Lord, / beneath this raw milk sky, your vision / of silvery cream comprising daylight"--there is an incessant somberness in each section. Though, I suppose in terms of focus in the book, the sections serve to allow a change of scenery. The first section flows as does the water with which it is built. Each image is in part a fluid and natural transportation from one poem to the next as in "Spirits at the Edge of Bayonet Woods": "constant swirling, watched her weep beside / the river's illiterate banks, lay her dress upon / its slick grasses, wade into the inch of loam / then lie facedown in its merciful pull." (pg. 18) As I said, the imagery does a great job creating atmosphere and shift in scenery; however, some of the poems take a turn for the melodramatic--case in point: "Spirits at the Edge of Bayonet Woods". There is, and I'm sure Bohince knows and understands this, a difference between drama and melodrama. In fact, I'm sure she does, because in the very next poem, "Johnstown", Bohince finds the medium between the drama of life and the Maudlin nature of soap operas.
Another aspect of the book that I found fascinating: Bohince's use of the acrostic. Now, I'm one to write a vertical lyric now and again. The problem that arises with most acrostics, however, is that they don't say as much as the one vertical line itself. It seemed as though she was trying to create a poem as important to the story as the actual act of the acrostic itself; however, again Bohince leaves much to be desired. Though the imagery is simplistic, the "message" even simpler, Bohince seems to sacrifice a lucid connection from poem to poem for the supposed cleverness of an acrostic. Though an exception is "Acrostic: Geese in Snow" on page 36, even this poem's imagery is ultimately sacrificed for such a lofty and figureless word as "curse"--the poem's final word.
Bohince's poetic imagery and even her desire to create something with deep meaning falls drastically shorter than what I had hoped. However, there are moments when lightening strikes, and it strikes hard. Such poems as "Johnstown", "Quarry", and "Pond" create a breathtaking environment and opens the reader so that the words are raw and very real.
Obadike and Bohince
This book was a complete disappointment. I normally don’t like using blanket statements like that to describe a work, but I found Obadike’s “Armor and Flesh” wholly lacking in our areas of focus. I was consistently unimpressed by each individual poem, and despite some attempts to tackle layered conflicts, the blatant objective of the poems made them flat and uninteresting, employing clichés like “She wears a mask,” or “Is chance/a cousin of romance?” and basic puns like “she sneezes/on the chance someone/will bless her” (which would arguably work as a line, but certainly not an entire poem).
Obadike’s attempt at form was equally disappointing: “Eschew and Languish” as well as “Carpool and the Tape Deck” were immediately transparent as a villanelle and sonnet (respectively), and showed basically no control or play with either form. Also, the devotion to the form completely stifled her content, resulting in stanzas like “Don’t watch me when we dance. / I don’t love you. I don’t. / All that you feel is chance.” The rhymes become so predictable, that I had essentially recited the poem prior to reading it. The sonnet started out with more promise, an actually story, without some direct allegory to be forced down the eye sockets of the reader. Unfortunately, Obadike once again compromised word choice in order to maintain the form, awkwardly throwing in chunky sentences about the car resembling a circus.
Obadike’s serves as an example of a poet who seems unable to craft strong, individual poems, and instead strings them together, hoping the result will be more elaborate and beautiful. Regrettably, predictability and stale language of each piece inhibited any chance (or more accurately, desire) to absorb a theme.
On Bohince:
Paula Bohince’s “Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods” used bizarre and engaging descriptions that had me rereading individual poems over and over again. Her word choice is so deliberate, that even when I’m not fully sold on an image, her consistency and devotion to one voice is difficult to criticize. She consistently mixes simple diction with long, scientific phrases, and words you haven’t heard or thought of in years. The eerie “Trespass” is somehow terrifying and delicate: “Above and around us, the electric fence/ hums like God--/ a magnification of the dreaming gnats we awakened/ discovering the lode of bones.”
Despite her pristine voice, we are constantly finding ourselves outside, alone or in danger. The contrast is certainly appealing enough to pull you to the next poem. Conversely, the drawn-out imagery and frequent density do make the collection more difficult to read in one sitting, but the slow progression of one central story make it fairly easy to pick up again.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Bayonet Woods as a Sequence
Kate Litterer here. I just finished up Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods and I have to say that the back cover's description of it as "a kind of mystery novel" was pretty apt, not necessarily because the collection had a progressive plot and denouement, but because of the character's development through Bohince's ordering for the poems. All of the collections we've read thus far told one speaker's voice (even though CWBK hosted other speakers, i.e. the Chisums, it centered on Billy's story; IEBW also hosts a few others' voices, i.e. farmhands, but centers on the speaker's story).
The speaker seems to me like a grown woman who describes her childhood through an adult's memories, using words that might not have been accessible to a young girl but are through an adult's vernacular. The use of the young girl's view of the world is instrumental to the collection, as even when the book nears its end, a tone of fear or abandonment or powerlessness exists. An example of the adult voice/child memory take place in "Landscape with Sheep and Deer", page 4:
I remember the arrhythmia of their movement
across the drenched pasture,
stuttering by my father would say.
What I'm trying to say is remote as a cloud
passing through woods, his face
in a window above the pen,
a clot of feeling. (1-7)
While the girl speaker has intense emotions of grief and pleasure, she most probably wouldn't say "arrhythmia," and the line "What I'm trying to say is [...]" makes me feel that the speaker now vividly remembers her childhood spent beside her father. This makes her loss of her father striking; she misses him tenderly and remembers many seemingly insignificant things about their life together. I agree with some who have already posted on Bohince: her diction is precise and allows her to create a tone of twistedness or grotesque discomfort, even when she discusses softer objects, like sheep or family. That precise voice and clarity of detail showed me that the speaker must be the now older, more mature daughter, and because her feelings of loss and loneliness continue to throb in the present, through the poems, I couldn't resist reading it through in one sitting to see if she finds solace.
The speaker seems to me like a grown woman who describes her childhood through an adult's memories, using words that might not have been accessible to a young girl but are through an adult's vernacular. The use of the young girl's view of the world is instrumental to the collection, as even when the book nears its end, a tone of fear or abandonment or powerlessness exists. An example of the adult voice/child memory take place in "Landscape with Sheep and Deer", page 4:
I remember the arrhythmia of their movement
across the drenched pasture,
stuttering by my father would say.
What I'm trying to say is remote as a cloud
passing through woods, his face
in a window above the pen,
a clot of feeling. (1-7)
While the girl speaker has intense emotions of grief and pleasure, she most probably wouldn't say "arrhythmia," and the line "What I'm trying to say is [...]" makes me feel that the speaker now vividly remembers her childhood spent beside her father. This makes her loss of her father striking; she misses him tenderly and remembers many seemingly insignificant things about their life together. I agree with some who have already posted on Bohince: her diction is precise and allows her to create a tone of twistedness or grotesque discomfort, even when she discusses softer objects, like sheep or family. That precise voice and clarity of detail showed me that the speaker must be the now older, more mature daughter, and because her feelings of loss and loneliness continue to throb in the present, through the poems, I couldn't resist reading it through in one sitting to see if she finds solace.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Obadike: And then it was over.
Kate Litterer here (alias Carol Caravan). Especially after reading Shannon's carefully-worded post, I am a little smokey in regards to Obadike's collection, but not because I feel she is not a talented writer. In fact, I thought her use of epigraphs and footnotes were meaningful, and although I feel she could have used hip-hop lyrics more evidently and instrumentally to tackle questions of race and personhood, I thought those were important to her collection.
I felt that once I hit "Shook" (p. 9), Obadike pulled me into the themes of her collection, which investigate racism and womanhood, or specifically her speaker's attempt to find a place of safety and comfort both in her personhood and outwardly. I give her a lot of credit for creating a multi-faceted, multi-personalized speaker whose voices aren't quite in dialogue with one another and I feel that this poem makes obvious the plight of feeling comfortable with oneself when one wants to act in different ways. Obadike's speaker is uncomfortable in the dinner situation: "At dinner, I sit next to a woman who speaks as if hemorrhaging" and "One of me can hear a rumbling, but she can't locate it" (lines 1 and 5). The speaker's discomfort comes out when "another of [her]" begins crying violently: "She thinks they mistake / my convulsive weeping for something else" (lines 9-10). But, as the narrative speaker assures the reader, "She doesn't know I am still dry" (lines 10-11). Another speaker emerges and "wants / to protect the talking women," although "She is the weakest among me and fears / the one who shakes" (lines 16-18). Ultimately, Obadike unites her three women-selves to a voyeuristic state: "We only hear the forks on ceramic / and the murmuring at other tables" (lines 23-23). The word "murmuring" shows the reader that the speaker/s has/have not gained stability or comfort and that she/they crave to act emotionally like the fast-speaking woman in the beginning of the poem, but do not. This sense of discomfort or weakness as a female speaker reemerges in the collection.
My blog title, "And then it was over," refers to the way I felt after the last poem, "Residue." "Residue" details the speaker's relationship with her period, which, in relation to the questions of femininity and sex throughout the book, might have symbolized a sense of strength and power. But the poem only briefly allows the speaker to recognize the special, individual power she holds, first as an attraction to a "nasty boy" and then as a house for eggs. Obadike writes: "[...] I bent to witness / unused eggs leak out of me, secret / words whispered from my uterus / to no one" (lines 17-20). While the speaker's blood is an object and does hold mystical power (to create; sexually attractive to the nasty boy), it is also a private thing, something for "the bookstore bathroom toilet" and something that to be "[lost] down a foreign drain" (line 1, line 24). Reading this poem, I thought "the speaker is finally finding a sense of comfort and strength that she derives from her womanhood"...and then I turned the page and it was over.
While the book didn't completely create closure for the female speaker's sense of comfort or protection, I don't think Obadike necessarily meant for it to close up happily so the reader could say, "Right on, girlfriend!" Instead, I was left contemplating the ways that the female speaker was strong, facing racist institutions and telling about it, and bringing up women's discomforts so they could be made obvious--I had the feeling throughout this collection that the speaker was yelling with her mouth wide open but no sound was coming out (and I mean that in a good way, because obviously I, as the reader, could hear what she was saying).
I felt that once I hit "Shook" (p. 9), Obadike pulled me into the themes of her collection, which investigate racism and womanhood, or specifically her speaker's attempt to find a place of safety and comfort both in her personhood and outwardly. I give her a lot of credit for creating a multi-faceted, multi-personalized speaker whose voices aren't quite in dialogue with one another and I feel that this poem makes obvious the plight of feeling comfortable with oneself when one wants to act in different ways. Obadike's speaker is uncomfortable in the dinner situation: "At dinner, I sit next to a woman who speaks as if hemorrhaging" and "One of me can hear a rumbling, but she can't locate it" (lines 1 and 5). The speaker's discomfort comes out when "another of [her]" begins crying violently: "She thinks they mistake / my convulsive weeping for something else" (lines 9-10). But, as the narrative speaker assures the reader, "She doesn't know I am still dry" (lines 10-11). Another speaker emerges and "wants / to protect the talking women," although "She is the weakest among me and fears / the one who shakes" (lines 16-18). Ultimately, Obadike unites her three women-selves to a voyeuristic state: "We only hear the forks on ceramic / and the murmuring at other tables" (lines 23-23). The word "murmuring" shows the reader that the speaker/s has/have not gained stability or comfort and that she/they crave to act emotionally like the fast-speaking woman in the beginning of the poem, but do not. This sense of discomfort or weakness as a female speaker reemerges in the collection.
My blog title, "And then it was over," refers to the way I felt after the last poem, "Residue." "Residue" details the speaker's relationship with her period, which, in relation to the questions of femininity and sex throughout the book, might have symbolized a sense of strength and power. But the poem only briefly allows the speaker to recognize the special, individual power she holds, first as an attraction to a "nasty boy" and then as a house for eggs. Obadike writes: "[...] I bent to witness / unused eggs leak out of me, secret / words whispered from my uterus / to no one" (lines 17-20). While the speaker's blood is an object and does hold mystical power (to create; sexually attractive to the nasty boy), it is also a private thing, something for "the bookstore bathroom toilet" and something that to be "[lost] down a foreign drain" (line 1, line 24). Reading this poem, I thought "the speaker is finally finding a sense of comfort and strength that she derives from her womanhood"...and then I turned the page and it was over.
While the book didn't completely create closure for the female speaker's sense of comfort or protection, I don't think Obadike necessarily meant for it to close up happily so the reader could say, "Right on, girlfriend!" Instead, I was left contemplating the ways that the female speaker was strong, facing racist institutions and telling about it, and bringing up women's discomforts so they could be made obvious--I had the feeling throughout this collection that the speaker was yelling with her mouth wide open but no sound was coming out (and I mean that in a good way, because obviously I, as the reader, could hear what she was saying).
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