What One Girl Knows

This is one of my favorite poems in Nicole Cuddeback's The Saint of Burning Down:

Tyrrhenian

Odd moments deliver one fully into
life that's always straying. Fleecy stars

off the poplars swim
blindly through the streets

as elements swap properties and even
the spirit might dream itself elemental,

floating just above,
already pushing off

like so many ships that didn't come back.
Yesterday I made my way into the sea.

First time in years. Crowds
of Italians. It wasn't

the Gulf where I used to go, but in the waves'
rough play lifting me off the drowned sand,

was it grief in bliss
or just the kindred salt

that drew forth the tears? Cold sea against
the bloodstream like a second life,

the one that lives while I,
sealed away, manage

to get a few things done. As if shreds
of life (I could say death, but I won't)

sometimes come home.
A fine spit of foam

gleamed on the blurring, gray surge. I was
seven-years-old falling backward into the waves,

Indelible, devastating joy.
The eternity in my lost life.

(pgs. 75-76)

Ahh. It was nice to take a break from fiction. Now I return to Margot Livesey's Criminals (I've been on quite a Margot Livesey kick lately).

Oh, I did write a poem recently, in honor of Jason and my upcoming anniversary. I had an overly-ambitious idea of writing a handful of poems, printing them out on very nice stationary, sealing them in envelopes, and then presenting them to Jason at the end of the month in a stack tied with a pretty ribbon. Then I realized that I really should concentrate on the thesis!

So anyway, I'll post "The Beginning" here after a few more minor revisions. Poetry writing is a great breath of relief when you're trapped in the middle of a yawning, gaping fiction thesis. I wrote the poem in a day, mulling some of the lines over in my head before penning them, typing the last stanza in the fifteen minutes before workshop. And when the first draft was complete, I felt such a sense of accomplishment! Sure, I get the same rush when I finish a short story draft, but that's after weeks, months, even years of thinking and writing.

I find I use different compartments of my mind to write poetry, as opposed to fiction. For poetry, I am engulfed in language and rhythm, and that kickass last stanza. For fiction, I have to consider character development, plot, setting, dialogue, where scenes should go and for how long, and an equally satisfying ending. I wonder if anyone else feels this way?

posted by Empress Girl @ 12:12 PM