{growing wilder}

so I featured last night at the Ugly Mug Cafe in Orange, CA (the Poetry Idiots reading) and it was amazing.

first of all, these people are really into poetry, as in they are the Poetry Idiots the way that we are Poetry Geeks. they open and close the reading with poetry by (gasp) poets outside community. and they listen, they really listen.

second, I did no quote-unquote performance work. and I found new places in my voice in reading this work that was somewhat memorized just because I've been looking at it so hard -- I don't know how to explain it, but I was in love again with the words in my mouth and the people hearing them in a way I haven't been in far far too long.

I had... fun. and not the wow, I rocked it kind of fun that comes from super-delivering strong work in high-energy performance, but the kind of fun that comes from discovering new levels and joys and disturbances in the work just by vocalizing it and being really present in that sharing.

and then I had wine with Mindy Netifee, a fantastic poet herself and a true activist. discussing local gentrification and land use issues with Mindy and her journalist roommate, and then talking the madness of nonprofit and fundraising work, in combination with the realization that I maybe shouldn't even try to be an entertainer, made me thirster than ever to get back into activist work.

so, OK, a few more minutes on Nick Flynn:


across a shorn field. I stood over it

- we've talked about "shorn" -- now the other clause on this line -- "I stood over it" -- the bag is burning, here. the suicide note belonging to someone the speaker knows is burning on a bag full of baby mice, and the speaker is just standing there.

- the speaker stands over it, not crouched down to look, not at its level, but looking down, above it. above the person who'd write such a note? maybe. unable to do anything, or unwilling?

& as the burning reached each carbon letter

- hm. not the fire, not flame, but the burning. more visceral somehow, and we know from the lines above that this is not fast fire, this is smoldering, slow burn. what does that mean about the person this bag represents, about that person's life and decision to die?

- "each carbon letter" -- not penciled, not lead, but carbon. what are carbon's associations? carbon-dating? carbon the essential element? and how would the line's feeling in your mouth change if it were "each lead letter?" see, on top of the alliteration that would pile on top of the internal rhyme, how much weight the word "lead" would heap upon the line? and yet it's pencil lead... not pencil carbon.

- why does carbon feel more like ash than lead does?

- also, the burning is reaching each letter, not each word. again, this is slow and methodical burn. what does this imply about the suicide?

of what you'd written

- an editor's first instinct might be to cut this line. of course it's what the You has written, isn't that obvious? couldn't you go directly from "each carbon letter" to "your voice released into the night"

- but look: this clause, all by itself on a line, what an indictment. sort of a "look what you've done." almost a taking to task. or a sigh, an acknowledgement. remember the passive voice of the early lines, almost implying that the suicide note might NOT have been written by the You? here, that's adjusted. it's still passive, it's not "of what you wrote" but it is an edging-toward, a gesture at, acknowledgement.

your voice released into the night

- well, it's a suicide note, so the idea of release makes sense. escape.

- this is the first time we the readers discover that it is night in the dream, as well as outside the dream. somehow that blurs the line further for me, between the dream and the actual

- and look, we go all the way from the first line to the tenth before hearing You again. and now, we get you/your in two lines in a row. there's a sense of build, of mounting energy

like a song, & the mice

- the simplicity of "like a song" is surprising -- part of me wants to know what kind of song, a dirge, a hymn, a lullaby? but let's assume he considered making it more specific, and chose to just say "like a song" -- what does that mean? a song could be anything, and look, we have no picture of the person who wrote this suicide letter

- a suicide note written in pencil on a paperbag. darkness. baby mice who are never physically described. the voice releases like a song. no specific song, no specific type of song, just a song. in the absence of description of this person, I get a sense that this person is him or herself, absent. slipping.

- "& the mice" -- the implication with this linebreak being that the voice released into the night not just like a song, but also like the mice. and what are the mice doing? they are huddled in the dark bag, pushing it across this shorn field. so the voice goes out like an anonymous song, and like these frightened mice in the dark

grew wilder.

- nothing wild, not even the fire, in this poem. until now, the mice starting to panic as the burning smolders closer and releases the voice into the night

- could this be the moment of panic just before the suicide occurs? the possible almost second thought as the body falls through space or the trigger cocks or the rope snaps?

- in any case, this matches the understatement of the entire poem's tone. and that I think makes it all the more terrifying, and dreamlike. that disassociation from something so overwhelming as a suicide note...

- and he never does grow wilder. maybe, maybe the speaker believes the wildness might save the writer.

***

oh, Mr. Flynn: should you come across this at any point: we'd love to have you read for us some Monday. please be in touch. (hey, it's a long shot, but a shot nonetheless. people Google themselves all the time.)