I have known, have loved (loved? respected, admired, perhaps), and had memorized that poem for... over 15 years.
At one point I think it characterized my marriage in many ways.
No longer, but it's not lost its squick-power nonetheless.
Another I've liked for even longer - 20 years, perhaps - is Spelling. I think it still affects me to this day, re-reading it. Actually, I'm certain it does.
Spelling
My daughter plays on the floor with plastic letters, red, blue & hard yellow, learning how to spell, spelling, how to make spells.
I wonder how many women denied themselves daughters, closed themselves in rooms, drew the curtains so they could mainline words.
A child is not a poem, a poem is not a child. there is no either/or. However.
I return to the story of the woman caught in the war & in labour, her thighs tied together by the enemy so she could not give birth.
Ancestress: the burning witch, her mouth covered by leather to strangle words.
A word after a word after a word is power.
At the point where language falls away from the hot bones, at the point where the rock breaks open and darkness flows out of it like blood, at the melting point of granite when the bones know they are hollow & the word splits & doubles & speaks the truth & the body itself becomes a mouth.
This is a metaphor.
How do you learn to spell? Blood, sky & the sun, your own name first, your first naming, your first name, your first word.
Oh god yes, that is another incredible poem. She is amazing. I love her circe/mud poems set. I was trying to find the Cinderella poem, but I couldn't find it, so I went with this instead, which has been tattooed on my brain ever since I first read it. And even though it's so short, it's meant more and more to me each time I think about it.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-15 02:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-15 02:41 am (UTC)She has another about Cinderella and her fate, but I could not find it, damnit.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-15 03:38 am (UTC)At one point I think it characterized my marriage in many ways.
No longer, but it's not lost its squick-power nonetheless.
Another I've liked for even longer - 20 years, perhaps - is Spelling. I think it still affects me to this day, re-reading it. Actually, I'm certain it does.
Spelling
My daughter plays on the floor
with plastic letters,
red, blue & hard yellow,
learning how to spell,
spelling,
how to make spells.
I wonder how many women
denied themselves daughters,
closed themselves in rooms,
drew the curtains
so they could mainline words.
A child is not a poem,
a poem is not a child.
there is no either/or.
However.
I return to the story
of the woman caught in the war
& in labour, her thighs tied
together by the enemy
so she could not give birth.
Ancestress: the burning witch,
her mouth covered by leather
to strangle words.
A word after a word
after a word is power.
At the point where language falls away
from the hot bones, at the point
where the rock breaks open and darkness
flows out of it like blood, at
the melting point of granite
when the bones know
they are hollow & the word
splits & doubles & speaks
the truth & the body
itself becomes a mouth.
This is a metaphor.
How do you learn to spell?
Blood, sky & the sun,
your own name first,
your first naming, your first name,
your first word.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-15 04:08 am (UTC)Awesome.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-15 09:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-15 04:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-15 12:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-15 04:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-23 02:23 am (UTC)*♥ Atwood*