{mice & exercise}

Bag of Mice
by Nick Flynn

I dreamt your suicide note
was scrawled in pencil on a brown paperbag,
& in the bag were six baby mice. The bag
opened into darkness,
smoldering
from the top down. The mice,
huddled at the bottom, scurried the bag
across a shorn field. I stood over it
& as the burning reached each carbon letter
of what you'd written
your voice released into the night
like a song, & the mice
grew wilder.

***

exercise:
select a person.
quickly make a list of 20 objects that represent that person.
choose the most interesting/surprising/right object.
the object is in a bag. what does it do?
do you reach in and feel it? what does it feel like?
does it become animated? does it lie there unmoving?
what does the bag look like?
who put the object in the bag?

look at the way Nick Flynn's poem uses a central metaphor that is complicated level by level throughout the poem.

I dreamt your suicide note

- as if he dreamed it into being. and the echoing Ts lending a feeling of encapsulation, even though it's enjambed to the next line

was scrawled in pencil on a brown paperbag,

- first of all, note the passive voice: not "I dreamed you scrawled your suicide note on a brown paperbag" but "was scrawled." as though the "you" in the poem might not even have written it -- a sense of separation here compounding the separation imposed by the fact of dreaming.

- note "scrawled" -- an important verb. strange in the mouth, uncomfortable. not an easy word to say. and the implication of quickness, carelessness in the writing.

- "in pencil" -- a critical detail. a suicide note written in pencil! how temporary. how erasable, like the writer?

- "on a brown paperbag," -- how ordinary. what are the associations? a child's school lunch? the grocery store? and how illegible must a note be, written in pencil on a brown paper bag?

& in the bag were six baby mice. The bag

- ampersand, which could just be a stylistic tic of the poet's, but for now let's examine within the context of the poem. to me, the ampersand is used when the word's even shorter than "and" -- it's more casual somehow, and faster. which, when dealing with a suicide note written in pencil on a paper bag, may be appropriate.

- again with the passive voice. "were" six baby mice. the way that in a dream thing simply appear to BE, rather than actively occurring. the mice are simply there, unquestioned.

- baby mice. picture them: hairless, vulnerable. not grown mice but babies.

- note the linebreak: how it puts the emphasis not on the mice, which are a given here, but the bag. the container.

opened into darkness,

- all by itself on a line. as if the interior of the bag, the seeming emptiness/darkness of it, even though we know there's something in there, something living, were as important as the exterior (where the suicide note is written.)

- an interesting thought, opening into darkness. is that like sleeping, the way we are open/vulnerable in the dark, asleep? and has that something to do with death, the final sleep?

smoldering

- all by itself. no punctuation, so much weight on one word. smoldering. and we have to go to the next line to find out what is smoldering: the bag, not the darkness.

- so we're pulled in two directions here: we want to stay with this word because out there by itself, it must be important. and yet we're pulled down to the next line by a need to know what is about to burn, or what just finished burning.

from the top down. The mice,

- so it's the bag that's smoldering, about to burn.

- and from the top down, the direction in which we write. undoing, of course, the writing. which was already so temporary, being in pencil.

- and now the mice are the central thing, ending the line.

huddled at the bottom, scurried the bag

- finally some action! and it's the mice doing it.

- baby mice in a burning bag that bears a suicide note, all dreamed. picture it. how complicated is this metaphor, within seven lines!

- they "scurried" the bag. the mice themselves aren't scurrying, but somehow doing that to the bag -- because the speaker can't now see the mice. in fact, we're not sure he's seen the mice at all. invisibility, knowledge, temporariness...

- and now fear. the mice scurrying the bag

across a shorn field. I stood over it

- "a" shorn field. what a difference if he'd said "the" shorn field, indicating that it's a known place, and not the strange dream location

- a "shorn" field. what gets sheared? sheep -- an animal we think of as complacent, passive (as the voice in the poem, someone who'd write a suicide letter in pencil on whatever was handy?)

...

to be continued.