[To read an introduction to this column, please see the first paragraph of the initial post here]
This week I would like to feature a poem I found recently that I think is powerful and important to read. It is from the accomplished poet R. Erica Doyle, and her words about the poem are given at the end.
“The Color of Water”
I coast through bands of muddy water,
a reddish swarm
animalcula
exploding
the instant motion ceased,
crossing both ends
of matter
movement isolated
in a drop of water,
animals naked
covering a space
infinite
water stained red
but
ocean abounded
with living
and
from the land
narrow lines of water
a bright red colour
feed
on the discoloration
of water spawn;
the dark
and sinuous
colour of being
a colour
the putrefying carcase
floating
no great distance
This is a found poem from Darwin’s The Voyage of The Beagle, which I don’t necessarily recommend reading, but if you want to you can here. That’s why color has a “u” in it. Also, if you want to try erasure poetry this is the site this poem originated from.
[To read an introduction to this column, please see the first paragraph of the initial post here]
This week I would like to feature the contemporary poet Aria Aber, whose work I admire. This is her most recent poem published in the New Yorker. The poem also references another poem by a different poet I enjoy, and that poem is given below as well.
[To read an introduction to this column, please see the first paragraph of the initial post here]
This week’s post is a little different from the last few. Featured is one of my favorite poems that for some reason embedded itself in my mind and has never left. I wrote a short essay analyzing the poem, and by sharing it I hope to give a small taste of how poems can work, even really short ones like this one. I hope you enjoy it!
[To read an introduction to this column, please see the first paragraph of the previous post here]
This week I will simply share two poems from one of my favorite contemporary poets, Solmaz Sharif. Much of her work can be found online, but these two poems feel similar to me and are both striking in many ways. Here they are below:
“I Go by She”
I wear sunflower dresses
and draw black triangles on my eyes.
I love the smell of vanilla and honey
and the sparkle of stars in the moonlight.
So how can I blame anyone for assuming
my apparent femininity equates to womanhood?
I refer to myself as she not out of identity but out of
passivity. Of course I’m a woman, I look like one.
I’m not a man but I don’t think I would complain
if tomorrow I awoke in the body of one.
Rather I think I’d feel the same; a stark indifference
to the very concept of my identity would not be new.
Perhaps that is my identity, indifference.
Because man I don’t think I feel like a woman
but nonbinary is reserved for short hair and androgyny.
I wonder
If I cut my hair and wore loose clothes
threw out my dresses and stopped wearing makeup
would I feel comfortable identifying with the identity
that I feel comfortable with? Would I feel comfortable
escaping the binary and asking to be called they?
Would shedding my identity allow me to be true to it?
But I love my hair, my tight clothes and flowing skirts.
I enjoy my femininity yet feel disconnected from womanhood.
So I don’t have a clue what my preferred pronouns are,
but I go by she.
