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Essential Tremor by Elizabeth Metzger
Essential Tremor by Elizabeth Metzger  ·  24
bristolstreet  ·  3878 days ago
columbiajournal.org  ·  #catchandrelease  ·  #catchandrelease.bristolstreet  ·  #poetry

I am very entranced by this poem. I don't want to influence any analyses by putting mine here, but if anyone wants to post thoughts after reading, I would love to engage in a discussion.

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thenewgreen  ·  3878 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I don't know if I have any analysis to share, but I will say that the end of this poem really struck me:

  I hear in heaven
  the angel has a harelip

  and she is willing to watch you shake.
I once wrote a song called "Hair Lip". I was born with a cleft pallet and according to the doctors, I had a harelip that healed in utero. I was born with a hairline scar that ran from my left nostril down to my lip, where the gap would have been.

I dodged a bullet.

I really enjoyed the poem though, it's got some pretty amazing imagery and for the reasons stated above, that last bit really resonated with me.

+discuss

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–1
bristolstreet  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Oh, wow, that's incredibly interesting. I love the duality of hare/hair for your hairline scar.

I think a lot of the images are related to falling short of expectations: everything is anticlimactic, even hell and heaven.

I also found an interview with Metzger about the piece that's on the same site. I wasn't able to listen to it all right now, but the beginning sounded interesting.

http://catchandrelease.columbiajournal.org/2014/10/31/writing-a-living-1-elizabeth-metzger/

+discuss

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_refugee_  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    i don't want to influence any analyses by putting mine here

Doesn't anyone sharing any analysis here influence any other analyses posted afterwards, thus negating this concern? Or else discouraging discussion?

+discuss

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–6
bristolstreet  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I suppose I'm assuming that anyone new to this post might read my comments at the top before reading the poem, but will probably not read the comments in the thread.

+discuss

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–5
_refugee_  ·  3876 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Fair, and upon reflection, I've done a similar thing before - withheld my opinion on a post because I wanted others'. I usually do this because I want to see if others will reach my same conclusions (or not) without me saying anything. So I can't fault the choice, exactly, but at the same time, I am interested in your opinion. So, allow me to read and comment and then hopefully, you will return the favor?

I enjoy the structure and the minimalism of this poem. Some of the imagery is pretty strong and original and I think the last line/ending is well done - that's often a difficult spot (especially for me personally when writing) in poems. I can't say I'm entranced by this poem because in general I think I like poems like this to have a little "more" to them to hang on to. Right now it is a series of disassociated images that imply a shape.

I think the poem loses itself a tiny bit (at least for me) both here:

    Where death is something you can fuck up the broken heart rolls three blank dice.

and here:

    Everything blushes but my ego now dumbed down for “sleep.”

With the second, I feel like there could be more force in the second line. I would delete "now" and the quotes and feel already the line is stronger. However, the poet probably finds these essential to the meaning of the poem. (I find I often look at poems and think about how I would change them. Sometimes it's a fun writing exercise.) With the first couplet, the lines are just a little beyond my grasp. I find I am spending too much time trying to make sense of them. "Where death is something you can fuck up" - suicide, a hospital? Am I reading too far into this? But, I am very fond of the ending, which I think ties the poem back together strongly enough that the weakness I feel in these lines can kind of be overlooked because of its force.

As for reading posts and reading comments, I can't say I do either in a particular order. Depends on the post. Sometimes the thread comments convince me to read a link. Usually if it's a poem thing I would probably skim them first, but in this case (as you responded to me and in my sort-order my comment was top) I didn't proceed further before checking out the poem. just for, you know, sanctity or whatever.

+discuss

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–3
bristolstreet  ·  3876 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  

    With the first couplet, the lines are just a little beyond my grasp. I find I am spending too much time trying to make sense of them.

I actually have a similar feeling, but with regard to the second couplet you posted. I am unsure what "now dumbed down" refers to: everything, or the ego? If it's the ego, then why is it in juxtaposition to the ego being the only thing not blushing? I suppose I read the first line, and I think: "Of course, the ego loves itself--it never would blush." But then the second line comes, and the ego--if it refers to the ego--is impotent, dumbed down for sleep.

That said, though, the general impression I get from that couplet in context is this: the speaker is looking inward and finding things to be sardonic about. (That's what I get from the quotes around sleep.) The speaker tells us the psychic says all that negative, broken heart rolling three blank dice shittiness "says a lot"--presumably about the speaker's future. There's outward eyes evaluating, and now the speaker's inward eyes don't see much to sing praises about either. It's a far cry from Whitman's body having sex with his soul in a sunlit meadow. (And the way the psychic line is presented--it's laughing at the psychic, too, who is supposed to be a peddler of predictions but can only give a reading that means nothing.)

Regarding the first couplet you posted, I do think the "death is something you can fuck up" may refer to suicide, but in keeping with the heaven/hell conceit, I think it might also have to do with St. Peter's Judgment at the pearly gates. Birth and death are the most profound human experiences. Death: the end of all. But wait: after you die, what, your immortal soul goes to be scrutinized and evaluated? This is in keeping with what I perceive to be the essential anticlimacticity (that's not a word) of the poem.

Although, if I try to perceive a causal link between fuck up/ the broken heart, my analysis falls apart a little bit. I can say what the "three blank dice" calls up for me: it's the only impossible result that is worse than the worst possible outcome, as I said below, and I think it also has to do with the murkiness of the future. The first interpretation would fit in with the absolute desolation of the subversion of death's profundity, while the second is supported my the following line about the psychic. Other than that--does it imply that the first line is a necessary condition for the second line? Or is "where death is something you can fuck up" just synonymous with world, here?

The couplet that seems more out of place for me is

    A crowd of phenom-hermits
    expects a planet to arrive.

I think this one is important, too, but I don't know if I'm getting enough from it. The analysis I like the most is that it just subverts the target of mocking--or bemoaning? Anyway, all that's before-- hell, a tulip, death, the future, the self--is painted to be flawed and short of expectations. Then this couplet arrives, and the speaker is pointing out how silly it is that these apparently professional outcasts are waiting for a whole planet to arrive to them. I don't know whether the "planet" is supposed to be heaven, or if the "phenom-hermits" are the religious; that doesn't quite fit. But regardless, the essence is there: we who expect the impossible are ridiculous.

The poem ends on what I see as a comparatively sweet note. The angel has a harelip--so what? Isn't confronting a face with imperfections better than a face that's perfectly radiant? Then, "and she is willing to watch you shake"; that could mean a number of things, but watching implies a sort of comfort even while shaking implies fear. That's enough for the speaker: everything more profound has turned out to be false or unattainable, anyway.

I'm going to post this mind-dump without editing, so if you've read all of it, I'm sorry for the way it reads. I hope I explained my thoughts well enough. Justifiably or not, I certainly found associations between the images, but I can see how one would not. Someone once told me that a poem only exists in an instant in the mind of the reader and disappears: it can never exist in the same way again. So I suppose that for some reason, this poem is a revelation in my mind--and it makes perfect sense that anyone else's reading is dissimilar.

+discuss

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–2
_refugee_  ·  3876 days ago  ·  link  ·  

OTHER POSSIBLE INTERPRETATIONS (not necessarily likely, just possible) I'VE THOUGHT ABOUT

    Where death is something you can fuck up the broken heart rolls three blank dice.

As you are probably aware a common French idiom is "le petit mort," literally "the little death," really referring to "orgasm." This is a common idiom and a generally known euphemism, both the French phrase and the English word death = sex/orgasm, from what I understand. So I think there's the potential that "death" may also be referring to or evoking sex, in which case yes - it's easy to sex wrongly, or at least, sub-par-ly. Keeping the context of the poem pretty strictly as a cast-off lover and broken heart, it is worth considering if this is intended by the author and at least invoked by this phrase if not the totality of what it refers to.

I would say less that the poem is anticlimactic but that it is anti-idyllic. I do think that goes better with the idea of a disillusioned/spurned lover who is realizing the seemingly best thing(s) (love, relationship, partner, etc) were not/are no longer as they were/seemed.

Psychic - not too many syllables away from psychiatrist.

Continuing to interpret the poem rather more rigidly I feel like

    Everything blushes but my ego now dumbed down for "sleep"

could be referring to an acquiescence or acceptance born of defeat or lack of energy. That is what I get from "now dumbed down," that there is a loss of energy and a general either begrudging acceptance of sleep or even perhaps welcoming sleep as respite from pain/disappointment. I could see myself after a break-up just trying to wear myself down into unconsciousness for a while to cope. But I agree, the blushing remains ambiguous, unless we are talking about a cheating lover perhaps (which could also be how one could fail at death/sex).

The hermits I agree are a departure and take the poem from a very close lens to a far one. However, perhaps the idea there is that of anticipating the impossible/ridiculous/never-gonna-happen, which may be how the narrator feels hoping their lover will return.

Some more thoughts. I agree, I interpret the angel "willing to watch you shake" as uplifting in a way, not deliberately but absolutely reminiscent of Taylor Swift, and interpret "shake" to mean "dancing" or celebration of some kind. That even in imperfection there can be joy. Even in the diminution of an ideal you can retain some carefree and happiness.

+discuss

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–1
bristolstreet  ·  3876 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Ooh, that's interesting. I didn't think about le petit mort. That would jive with the use of "fuck." Incidentally, the first time I was told about le petit mort I was in tenth grade and I think we were reading Macbeth. I don't remember where it fit in exactly, but I do remember my (female) teacher telling us that the reason it's called that is because when you orgasm, your heart beats incredibly slowly, you become lightheaded, and time seems to almost stop--you really do feel close to death. There began my unreasonable expectations for sex.

I like the lover interpretation as well. And I definitely thought about psychiatrist when I read psychic. Your interpretation is more the poet's end--lived experience--while mine is the grandiose bumfuckery of either a wide-eyed reader or a poet who's got a big head. In the tradition of the American classroom, I say each one is the best way to interpret it.

+discuss

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thenewgreen  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I think that is a very safe assumption. It is certainly how I tend to approach a post. I would have read your commentary, then gone to the poem and then returned and read the comments here.

+discuss

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lil  ·  3878 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The sadness of finding out that

    you are no longer the beloved.

is the most empty, helpless, and hollow of sadnesses. It's not a place one wants to visit, but writing poetry in that state of pain can deliver some haunting metaphors:

    the broken heart rolls three blank dice
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–14
bristolstreet  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

"Three blank dice"--I love that. You roll, you're hoping, and it's the only impossible result that is worse than the worst possible outcome.

    are no longer the beloved.

    I take a machete to a tulip.

    Where death is something you can fuck up

and

    the angel has a harelip

are all such dissonant, harsh lines--and I think it's partly because they end on an unstressed syllable, stopping on the "downturn."

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–13
lil  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    dissonant, harsh lines
being dumped is harsh. being loved less is harsh.
+discuss

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–12
bristolstreet  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

For sure. I was talking more about how it scanned/sounded when read aloud. But composition and meaning interact, as always.

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–11
lil  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I understand what you were looking for. You got me reading for hard consonant sounds like "death" "dice" and "dumbed down."

Are you a poet?

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–10
bristolstreet  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I guess I would say I dabble. I have been published once a couple of years ago in a national YA lit mag, and I've taken a class in university, but I feel like I am much better at appreciating than creating most of the time. Are you a poet? :)

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–9
lil  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I sometimes write things for hubski under the tag #todayswritingprompt. The real poets on this site include _refugee_, humanodon, rezzeJ. thenewgreen has amazing song lyrics and even flagamuffin has impressed me over the months with a verse or two.

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–7
user-inactivated  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

EVEN LIL OL' FLAGAMUFFIN

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–6
lil  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The capital letters suggest that you are imbibing as you finish writing up your research. I forget what your usual Saturday night drink is. You've been known to linger in Motels in states that are not Texas.

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–3
user-inactivated  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Working and quite guzzling But the state of the economy to come

Is dark scary and puzzling When I'm drunk on kahlua and rum

Come on lil - you know me well Certainly you've got it right

Would indeed be a cold day in hell Ere I was sober on a Saturday night

yeesh

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–2
_refugee_  ·  3876 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Here is my funny short low-effort poem of the day:

Challenge

  Show me a single
  literary magazine
  without a cigarette in it 
I shall shelve it for my short clever poems book along with my brunch poems.
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thenewgreen  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

A cold day indeed!

This reminds me of Ogden Nash. I keep one of his poems in my pocket to use at parties and events to seem clever. Here it is:

  There is something about a martini 
  Ere the dining and dancing begin
  And to tell you the truth
  It's not the vermouth
  I think that perhaps it's the gin
Boooya!

That's right, I said "booya" after an Ogden Nash poem. There is a first time for everything.

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thenewgreen  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Hey, at least you are a poet, I'm just some lyricist.

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–1
user-inactivated  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

check my most recent effort I think I may have to throw in the towel

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thenewgreen  ·  3877 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Are you a poet? :)

Yes she is.

We have a pretty healthy appreciation for poetry around these parts. I have been fortunate to cultivate some nice friendships with the poets lil mentions in her response. I've actually been very fortunate to have been gifted some of humanodon's writings to use as lyrics. The most recent incarnation is here. -It's a collaborative music project on Hubski.

More creatives are MOST WELCOME here. dabble away my friend!

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