Listening to Neko Case can be dangerous for me; her lyrics seem so intense sometimes, and there’s something about the twang that makes it extra emotive. Good old alt-country. I can sing my lungs out along with her, and break down crying in the middle of a song. “Wet shoes drag you off to school, shoes that never dry…”
Also very evocative is a poem called “The Onion” by John Thompson which I came across this afternoon in The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse in English. Strange that a poem about a vegetable should yank the heartstrings so. I’ll include a few lines, at the risk of defying copyright law (it can be found here if you have access to Jstor):
…
I cup the onion I watched grow all summer:
cutting perfectly through its heart
it speaks a white core, pale
green underskin, the perfections
I have broken, that curing grace
my knife releases;
and then you are by me, unfolded
to a white stillness, remade warmth on warmth.
So we turn from our darkness,
our brokenness,
share this discovered root,
this one quiet bread
quick with light, thyme, that deep
speech of your hands which always
defeats me, calling me through strange earths
to this place suddenly yours.
Sorry for the big line breaks, I’m not sure how to change that. Being technologically inept is definitely not all it’s cracked up to be.
Anyway. Those are the last few stanzas; I love where he places his line breaks and lines like “that deep/ speech of your hands which always/ defeats me.” I think poetry and I may be getting back together, so to speak. Writing well, and also reading well (please see Zadie Smith for discussion), take time and effort. I still have a lot to learn about poetry and writing in general, but I love the feeling of turning out a line that seems right. I want to work at being a poet along with all of the other things I’ve become while my writing life was on hiatus.
It sounds supremely pretentious to talk about my “writing life.” Who the fuck do I think I am? Two publications in a university journal do not a poet make. But I’ll work on it.
