"Anorexic"
Flesh is heretic.
My body is a witch.
I am burning it.
Yes I am torching
ber curves and paps and wiles.
They scorch in my self denials.
How she meshed my head
in the half-truths
of her fevers
till I renounced
milk and honey
and the taste of lunch.
I vomited
her hungers.
Now the bitch is burning.
I am starved and curveless.
I am skin and bone.
She has learned her lesson.
Thin as a rib
I turn in sleep.
My dreams probe
a claustrophobia
a sensuous enclosure.
How warm it was and wide
once by a warm drum,
once by the song of his breath
and in his sleeping side.
Only a little more,
only a few more days
sinless, foodless,
I will slip
back into him again
as if I had never been away.
Caged so
I will grow
angular and holy
past pain,
keeping his heart
such company
as will make me forget
in a small space
the fall
into forked dark,
into python needs
heaving to hips and breasts
and lips and heat
and sweat and fat and greed.
In class we talked about how many poems written by Boland were often criticized, or
at least noted, to be written almost autobiographically. My point was because of
our preconceived notion of writing about "what we know" that we are more likely to
assume that any poetry or prose is written with at least some truth to the author.
Though Anorexia is a very real and serious condition, I do not believe that Boland
was one of the women who has struggled or is struggling with this disorder. The
imagery in this poem is striking, and though partially disturbing I think would
benefit readers. We get a better sense of how Eavan Boland uses her creative mind to
fill in what she does not know. This idea is also presented in Object Lessons as she
tries to piece together what information she has of her grandmother while at the same
time creating details of which she has no proof... such as the red hat.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Another work by Eavan Boland that I would like to share
Simplicity in Boland
"I wanted simplicity. I craved it. At school I would learn Thomas Hood's poem: 'I remember, I remember/The house where I was born.' But as time went on, I didn't. Such memory as I had was constantly being confused and disrupted by gossip and homily, by the brisk and contingent talk of adults. 'Stop that. Settle down. Go to sleep now.'" ~Object Lessons, p. 38
What I like about this passage is that as Boland talks of simplicity and her desire for it, she manages to keep her sentences from their usual complexities. She is speaking of her childhood at this time, and so the quick and short sentences are fitting to the situation. Where the one sentence expands itself, it is for the purpose (as I see it) of accentuating that her memories of childhood were "being confused and disrupted" by those around her.
Two Quick Side Notes:
-I don't remember the house where I was born because we moved months afterwards.
-Ann Page, I'm sure you were pleased to see "contingent" used in this passage
What I like about this passage is that as Boland talks of simplicity and her desire for it, she manages to keep her sentences from their usual complexities. She is speaking of her childhood at this time, and so the quick and short sentences are fitting to the situation. Where the one sentence expands itself, it is for the purpose (as I see it) of accentuating that her memories of childhood were "being confused and disrupted" by those around her.
Two Quick Side Notes:
-I don't remember the house where I was born because we moved months afterwards.
-Ann Page, I'm sure you were pleased to see "contingent" used in this passage
APS for Jenna
Eavan Boland
page #24 "Poetry"
"The mystique was sustained by prescriptions. Poetry, it was suggested, was something of power and resonance. It was also a good deal removed from that life which was deemed ordinary."
page #24 "Poetry"
"The mystique was sustained by prescriptions. Poetry, it was suggested, was something of power and resonance. It was also a good deal removed from that life which was deemed ordinary."
Language & Exile
It seems as though this year I have become incredibly interested in how language is used in text. Boland discusses language, and its incredible importance, on nearly every page. I have also noticed the link between Danticat and Boland in their feelings of isolation, or more specifically, exile. The following passage discusses both the exile, and the use of language...
"The inevitable happened. One day my tongue betrayed me out of dream and counterfeit into cold truth. I was in the cloakroom at school in the middle of the afternoon. A winter darkness was already gathering through one of the stubborn fogs of the time. A teacher was marshaling children here and there, dividing those who were taking buses from those who were being collected. "I amn't taking the bust," I said. I was six or seven then, still within earshot of another way of speaking. But the English do not use that particular construction. It was an older usage. If they contract the verb and the negative they say, "I'm not." Boland p. 46
"The inevitable happened. One day my tongue betrayed me out of dream and counterfeit into cold truth. I was in the cloakroom at school in the middle of the afternoon. A winter darkness was already gathering through one of the stubborn fogs of the time. A teacher was marshaling children here and there, dividing those who were taking buses from those who were being collected. "I amn't taking the bust," I said. I was six or seven then, still within earshot of another way of speaking. But the English do not use that particular construction. It was an older usage. If they contract the verb and the negative they say, "I'm not." Boland p. 46
More Splice-en-dipity in Danticat's "Auto"Biography
I apologize for completely forgetting to post this over the weekend. Here is my entry on Danticat's ability to splice stories into her autobiography, a technique that actually seems to remove Edwidge from the horrors of her own story.
One story that I think of off the top of my head is the folk tale that Edwidge shares with her readers in the final pages of her book. After Edwidge's father dies, one of Granme Melina's stories is included to serve as a parallel to what is going on in Edwidge's life. The story ends with the following passages:
"...The daughter took the false teeth in her hands and looked at them with great sadness, but also with a new sense of courage. 'As my father wishes, so it shall be,' she said. "We will have the wake to honor him, to rejoice and celebrate his life before his body is put in the ground. We will eat. We will sing. We will dance and tell stories. But most importantly, we will speak of my father. For it is not our way to let our grief silence us" (pg. 267).
This brief story allows readers to know exactly how Edwidge dealt with her father's death (and also her uncle's, I'm sure). Of course she wanted her father back at first. Of course she wanted to raise him from the dead. Grief is sometimes handled with this form of denial and not being able to recognize that the dead individual is gone forever. However, Edwidge eventually came to terms with her father's death and accepted what had occured. She decided that it was more important to honor her father by remembering him through stories, rather than remaining in a state of complete mourning.
The final portion of the passage actually reminds me of the character I am playing in "SNAFU: Unplugged." Jaimee is considered "the one who talks" in order to deal with her father's death. She loves to tell stories about him in order to remember. When I read the passage, especially the line about not allowing grief to silence you, I could not help but think of Jaimee!
One story that I think of off the top of my head is the folk tale that Edwidge shares with her readers in the final pages of her book. After Edwidge's father dies, one of Granme Melina's stories is included to serve as a parallel to what is going on in Edwidge's life. The story ends with the following passages:
"...The daughter took the false teeth in her hands and looked at them with great sadness, but also with a new sense of courage. 'As my father wishes, so it shall be,' she said. "We will have the wake to honor him, to rejoice and celebrate his life before his body is put in the ground. We will eat. We will sing. We will dance and tell stories. But most importantly, we will speak of my father. For it is not our way to let our grief silence us" (pg. 267).
This brief story allows readers to know exactly how Edwidge dealt with her father's death (and also her uncle's, I'm sure). Of course she wanted her father back at first. Of course she wanted to raise him from the dead. Grief is sometimes handled with this form of denial and not being able to recognize that the dead individual is gone forever. However, Edwidge eventually came to terms with her father's death and accepted what had occured. She decided that it was more important to honor her father by remembering him through stories, rather than remaining in a state of complete mourning.
The final portion of the passage actually reminds me of the character I am playing in "SNAFU: Unplugged." Jaimee is considered "the one who talks" in order to deal with her father's death. She loves to tell stories about him in order to remember. When I read the passage, especially the line about not allowing grief to silence you, I could not help but think of Jaimee!
The Autobiography of the English Major About to Graduate
...as told through the musical stylings of Jamie Cullum.
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