In the Oct 31 New Yorker, both Brenda Hillman and D. Nurkse have poems that I had to read a few times to get a good handle on. I only do that if something about the poem interests me. Hillman’s poem, “Till It Finishes What It Does,” has just enough intriguing little details, and phrases that don’t at first reading make sense, to make me go back. “The night nurse had put on // his little frowning socks…” The narrator’s father is in the hospital after an operation, we gather. But why frowning socks? What an adjective to put in there. Maybe she really saw such socks, I don’t know, but it’s not a word I’d ever have conjured for that situation, and yet it’s perfect. “When all the visitors // had left the room, // the tiny valve of the pig beat // inside our father’s heart…” Again, an original detail. But then she goes a-twisting: “like the spokes of the sun disk, in a hieroglyph…” and the phrase means nothing to me. Whatever she’s aiming for, it’s over me. But then, “above the squiggly river symbol,” well, that’s the machine keeping track of the heartbeat, right? So now I’m thinking there is sense behind these symbols somewhere, and I’m back exploring.
Seems like a cheap trick many/most of our current editors are buying (and so our current poets are turning) is to throw meaningless, or at least highly tangential, images into an otherwise staid poem to generate interest, buzz, whatever. So when I see these real stretches for a metaphor by an author, I get wary. But I like this poem, and it didn’t fall into that trap.
A poet I’ve liked since I first read him, D. Nurkse, has a poem here as well: “The Bars.” About, well, bars. And beers. Starts out: “After work I would go to the little bars //along the bright-green river.” He doesn’t go very long before throwing out a surprise adjective, you’ll notice. Then, “The Schlitz globe revolved so slowly, // disclosing Africa, Asia, Antarctica,” and we see the guy getting stoned, watching the world twirl by, getting younger drink by drink: “until I was a child, they would not serve me, // they handed me a red hissing balloon…” I did not see that one coming. “but for spite I let it go…” and we have a beautiful rendering of character here, and surprise images, and a scene we all can relate to, but looked at from a different angle, then a powerful ending. Excellent work. And not a weird, extraneous image in the place.
Peace in poetry,
P M F Johnson