Final tally: flash fiction and poetry lost by a landslide to Las Vegas and Criss Angel's Cirque du Soleil show, so I'm typing my blog post now, before the break.
While some of the images this poet creates are beautiful and spot-on for the occassion of the particular poem, I found a lot of it to be very obscured and difficult to get at the real heart of. There were a few, though, that deserve an honorable mention here.
"First Day of the Hunt" - I have family in Pittsburgh, but I didn't realize that schools took a holiday for the first day of hunting season until I started attending college here. I always thought that was a unique little something to the city of Pittsburgh and since my cousin and her family are hunters, this poem seemed like the window into the event that I may not get to experience first hand (just paintball for me, thanks).
I loved how the poet was unafraid to admit that "we're so country / all our boys will skip away,", it hints at a certain pride in her upbringing. The "profound elemental list" of "rifle, rounds, knife, rope" is short and sweet. I wish my list of things before I set out for a day were so short. It's a small list and yet it feels like all a true hunter would really need, going back for generations.
"Visiting cousins: stroking curves / of antler, lengths of blood-stiffened fur". Maybe the "blood-stiffened fur" was supposed to be shocking, but I'm actually comforted by it as part of the whole image of those two lines. It creates a vivid image of a family gathering in which the personal spoils of the hunt are being shown off.
Personally, I think it could have done without the "woe is me" of waiting for my husband/brother/cousin to return. I was enjoying the description of the hunt, but my rising theory is that no piece of flash fiction or poetry will ever gain any recognition unless there is some sort of down note or deep-seated angst to remind us that life is never fun. Ever.
"When I Think of Love" and "The Gospel According to John" seemed to be a pair of poems meant to go hand in hand and so they win second place in my favorites.
Normally, I'm not a romantic, but there were a few descriptions in "When I Think of Love" that I couldn't ignore. "the rainbow, the memory / dwindling to one sexual minute caught in the sunlit / hollow of his throat, pool deepening". This seems to be one of those rare moments in art/writing/film where it is the girl gazing upon the male interest instead of the other way around. Maybe it's just because I'm a girl, but it's nice to hear a slightly sensualized description of a guy every once in a while. Let's face it, in a field historically dominated by men, most sensual descriptions are a "melon fest".
An even better stanza: "there in that remote acre of lust where I've hid him / all these years, so that he lives on, / forever nineteen, drinking the cold tea I bring / to this boy who left school at fourteen".
Forever nineTEEN, drinking the cold TEA I BRING, to this boy who left school at fourTEEN. The assonance captured me, not without intending to, but in a very subtle way. I didn't realize I was reading a few lines that sounded so nice until after I had already read them. I also like the idea of how she's kept that image/piece of him with her in her own secret place/way.
"The Gospel According to John", while nothing in particular leapt out at me, it seemed to be connected to the previous poem, the poet taking a stab at John's point of view, which is ultimately a little sadder and much less romantic. Ending with the line "belonging to His kingdom of violence." was a powerful move, though, making him sound almost like the cynical teenager who's questioning and critiquing the supreme being most of his religion hold to be so benign and merciful.
Thus ends my spiel on "Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods." Enjoy the break, everyone.
Vegas, here I come!!!
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In Paula Bohince's "Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods," the protagonist recalls the old farm where she grew up after her father is murdered. Her old home is isolated in the wilderness, removed from society, and the return evokes old memories of nostaliga. Already, a sense of loneliness and bitter remorse for the past is established and sets the tone which will carry on for the rest of this poem. “I taste the odor of straw and millet released into fall, the cursive of my father’s burning cigarette, muslin curtain parting.” The murder of her father has left a profound effect on the narrator and she is changed forever because of it, seeing the world in a different, dimmer light. However, it is this lighting which illuminates her in the dark and will allow her to find meaning in her sorrow. There is plenty of sensory detail in Bohince's writing and I also noticed a huge emphasis on nature and violence, especially when the murder is described by John: "When the wet rose bloomed in the chest of the man I killed, I tried to concentrate on its image, tried to sit with that flower and feel as God must, the pleasure of his birds swollen with feathers, his birds bound to the sky, belonging to his kingdom of violence". It is awesome how Bohince is able to take elements from both these contrasting themes and combine them to create these raw images. After all, nature isn't always about sunshine and flowers. Nature can be cold, brutal and unforgiving, often reflecting our own cruel human nature.
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