#4--Food
 

Food

Stiffening in dried blood, half a dozen swung
from his belt loops and a full dozen more
lumped out his crocus sack. He limped, foot-sore,
that gangly, felt-hat black whose thin coat hung
like something scarecrows wore, while evening dew
had soaked the legs of fraying overalls
beggar lice clung to. Sure, there were old walls
between us, but he nodded: "Howdy-do."
He froze, then; dead slow, he laid supper down.
I squatted with my .12 gauge, scanned the brush:
nothing—until his one shot .22
ripped up a leap of guts and furry brown.
He fetched his kill and tipped his hat, no rush,
then slipped back in the woods to skin and stew.

This is a masterful narrative sonnet, taut and economical, with a classic volta between octave and sestet. The opening is in medias res, without a wasted word. In the octave one hunter observes another—his belt and burlap sack evidence of his skill at rabbit or perhaps squirrel hunting, his threadbare clothes of his poverty—across the “old walls” of race, class and a painful history. I admire the way “old walls,” as in “Mending Wall,” have both literal and figurative force. While the octave is relatively adjective-heavy, it also has precise and vivid verbs (stiffening, lumped, limped). I wonder if “thin coat” could be replaced with a disyllabic noun to make that line a little less dense with modifiers and monosyllables. I also would suggest hyphenating “beggar lice,” as I initially thought that beggar was an adjective and wondered how the speaker could observe lice on someone’s clothes. Once I looked up “beggar lice” and learned that they are prickly burrs, it all made sense. The poet depicts this man’s appearance and character with remarkable clarity in the space of eight lines.

The variation in enjambed and end-stopped lines throughout seems just right. And the variation in the placement of caesurae is a marvel. Look at the turn to the sestet: “He froze, then; dead slow, he laid supper down.” The three caesurae slow down the line to match the hunter’s movement. The beat on “dead” hints at what the result will be for whatever creature he has heard moving in the brush. “Slow,” though an offbeat, takes heavy speech stress, the tension between meter and rhythm further slowing things down. The colloquial “laid” for “lay” lets us hear the speaker’s voice as well as seeing what he sees. He squats and scans the brush to no avail. And then the .22 rifle rings out. I take it that “one shot” means the rifle can only be fired once before it has to be reloaded, so he has one chance to bag this animal. “Ripped up a leap of guts and furry brown” made my own guts contract. Fetching his kill, the more skilled of the two hunters tips his hat courteously to the speaker—who, carrying a .12 gauge shotgun, appears to have the wrong weapon for small game hunting (thank you Google!)—before retreating to the woods to make supper. The quiet internal rhymes “tipped” and “slipped” contrast effectively with the violent “ripped” of the previous line.

One unusual thing about the rhyme scheme of this poem is that the rhymes on “dew” cross the volta. I’ve always thought it preferable for octave and sestet to have a distinct set of rhymes, to underscore the break between them. But here, in a poem where two characters acknowledge each other across “old walls,” I think it works.

A poem this good deserves a better title. I would have liked either the title or a subtitle to identify when and where the poem takes place.

I thought this looked familiar. This sonnet is so good it's made it to the Big Ten of the Bakeoff before.

Catherine and Susan, if this is deemed too big a leak, please tell me so and I'll delete this post!

Not my usual cup of tea, but definitely effective and masterfully arranged. Catherine's analysis of the lines and pacing is right on the money, though I disagree with her about the title. Best so far, I think.

David R.

Yes, this has starred here before, which is why when Catherine said she had firearms sonnets I asked if the author was hunting squirrels again. Memorable work, and a wonderful comment by Catherine.

The second reading of this makes all the difference. First time through, the level of detail almost distracted from the narrative. But, once I got the bloody thing under my belt, it really came to life. I love the close.

Rick

Well, I think it's the best on the board so far. It's very different and very well done. The voice is great, and it has such fine tension in it.
But it's also a little strange seeing this here. Firstly, some of us have a really good memory when it comes to bake-offs, and secondly others of us have recently been reading all the old bake-offs all over again. And both of those statements apply to both of me. (-:
So I'm not sure how to react to an old bake-off poem popping up on a new bake-off. I guess I'll just finish by saying that my very favorite from the same bake-off year as this one also had a gun and a coat in it, so maybe it will pop up here too, and all that stuff.

I don't have the memory for old bake-offs that others have, but I have to say I don't much like the idea of previous finalists appearing again. It's one thing to re-enter sometihing that never made it to the boards, but it seems odd and unnecessary to me to re-enter one that already received the DG treatment and went up for votes. I suppose there is nothing in the rules prohibiting it, and there may be more gut than brain in my reaction, but I don't like the idea.

David R.

What David said.

I feel abashed. My observation wasn't meant to create this awkwardness, but to stress that the sonnet is indeed very good. Nevertheless, the objections are duly noted for the future.