Recently, a friend of mine wrote that she disliked dissecting poems to analyze them. As she puts it
“if you try to put it back together, it will never look the same again. In general, things don't look better to me when the blood and guts are spilling out.”
I, as it turns out, couldn't be more opposite in my love of poetry. When it comes to art, in all its forms, I prefer the blood and guts. It might be because I'm Catholic; blood and body were always part of every mass. There are several self portraits by Frieda Kahlo holding exposing her insides that best illustrate my point. Any of the German masters' also serve nicely. When I see the insides of a poem, I see it for what it really is. I feel like it's letting me in, for a closer glimpse, a true artistic intimacy. But it's a trick. I never really learn it all the way to its core. There are always new things, though, with every reading, either silently or out loud. The Shirt by Jane Kenyon is one of those poems.
The Shirt
The shirt touches his neck
and smooths over his back.
It slides down his sides.
It even goes down below his belt—
down into his pants.
Lucky shirt.
1 comment:
What a wonderful post! And what a beautiful poem!
I think that there are some things that I like to be messy. I have always secretly wanted to be someone who could rip out the guts of a poem and know what it all means, but I always end up killing it in the end.
And lucky me
to have a friend
like you.
Post a Comment