Woman of Mystery
 

Unspoken

She rarely talked about herself, so I
sifted for clues: her chemistry degree,
her skill at tax prep and at making pie,
her killer tennis serve, her memory
(near photographic). Calm and self-effacing
in public, but an ace at bridge, she knew
intricate routes and drove them fast, outracing
yellow lights. She raised five children, grew
wisteria, roses, irises, and played
piano after the kids were all in bed.
Then, surging waves of splendor rolled and swayed,
lifting my heart and flooding through my head
as tides are pulled and tumbled by the moon.
Chopin. Moonlight Sonata. "Clair de Lune."


Revisions:
L2-3 was "was left to puzzle out her mystery / from meager clues: her skill at making pie,"
L6 "an ace" was "a whiz"
L7 "intricate routes and drove them fast" was "her way and drove with confidence"
L11 was "Then, waves of surging splendor rolled and swayed,"
L12 "flooding" as "flowing"
L13 Period was a colon
L14 was "Chopin, "Moonlight Sonata," "Clair de Lune.""

Hi, Susan—

I like this poem a lot. It reminds me of your poem, “Self-Made,” which also presents a character sketch of an intelligent and misunderstood woman. I failed to realize at first reading that “Self-Made” was a self-portrait, so I wondered if this one was, too. I don’t think it is.

What interested me most was wondering why she rarely talks about herself. I like the title “Unspoken” better than “Woman of Mystery” because it directs the reader’s attention to the key issue. I laid out the puzzle pieces you provided and tried to put them together into a coherent whole.

First, she is accomplished in the traditionally feminine skills of baking, gardening, bridge, and child care. Second, she is accomplished also at traditionally masculine skills like athletics and driving. She seems introverted, (“rarely talk[ing] about herself,” “self-effacing”), but enjoys tennis and bridge, which are social and competitive activities. Third, she has a love of beauty, both the natural beauty of her garden and the artistic beauty of classical music. So why does she seem to want to hide the intelligence shown by her many talents and “near photographic” memory?

Theory 1: She is more interested in listening than in broadcasting. She has no need to impress others and is highly selective in choosing close friends with whom to share herself.

Theory 2: She has Impostor Syndrome. She is insecure in spite of her demonstrated competence and stays quiet because she fears that her supposed fraud will be exposed.

Theory 3: She enjoys her own company. She is naturally introverted, and uses silence to signal to others that she needs time to herself. This is perceived by others as a mysterious quality, coded in the poem by references to the moon.

The second mystery in the poem is the precise relationship between the speaker and the subject. The speaker knows the seemingly distant subject well enough to know her skills, driving habits, and how she spends her evenings at the piano. If I had to guess, I would venture that the subject is a member of the speaker’s family, possibly her mother.

Glenn

Hi Susan,

I like the plain-spokenness of this and being left to wonder just how successful the narrator really was at puzzling out their own mystery.
Perhaps 'as tides are raised'?
And, maybe another moon inspired piece of music to replace Chopin?

RG.

Hi Susan,

These tributes to your mother are creating a nice memorial and some good art. I have highlighted a couple places where my reading got a little bumpy, but it's probably just me. I offer a couple suggested changes off the top of my head to show what I myself would say in case they have any value to you.

All the best,
Jim

I really like this, Susan. It's strong throughout and the ending is particularly beautiful.

I personally like having Chopin there - although it's not the name of a specific piece of music like the others, in this context it immediately evokes (for me) his Nocturnes, which are nighttime appropriate. Also, his music fits your description nicely.

Thanks, everyone, for your responses and suggestions.

Glenn, "Unspoken" is my intended title. I usually use a false title on the thread index to deceive any bots, though sometimes readers prefer that title, and I have been known to change to it. This is a poem about my mother. I think your first theory has elements of the truth in it, and your third theory might have a little, but I don't think the Impostor Syndrome fits her. Instead, of it, I have the theory that she was born into a time that had no use for women with many of her skills, so she adapted by switching to the skills that were acceptable for women of that time. One of my aunts, who had a similar skill set, complained all the time and was deeply unhappy about her lack of suitable career opportunities. But my mother never complained, and seemed to be happy, as far as her children could tell.

Richard, I prefer "pulled" to "raised" because the former suggests something more powerful. My mother played a lot of Chopin, so it is hard to single out one particular work.

Jim, the city she was driving through was Washington, DC, a maddeningly difficult place to drive because of its many one-way streets, but she seemed to have a map of it in her head and could navigate it unerringly. I want to keep the phrase "her skill at making pie" because I am listing her qualities, and the pie itself isn't one of those.

Hilary, yes, I could not omit Chopin, who seemed to be her favorite, judging by how often she played his works. I could not single out just one of them. I am glad that the ending works for you as I intended.

Susan

On my sister Mary's recommendation, I have shortened the introduction to include more details.

Susan

(Sorry about the earlier mis-post. Blush, blush...)

Susan, I don't find quite the cohesion in this sonnet as in your previous two. Perhaps those two are damn hard acts to follow. :) Or perhaps it's because the turn doesn't come in the expected place, although that typically doesn't bother me, so maybe not. But that odd placement of the volta does definitely underscore for me the fact that I'm expecting a different kind of argumentative equilibrium and symmetry between what comes before the turn and what comes after. I can definitely see the contrast between vocal silence and eloquent musical expression, but you're leaving the reader to make the two counterbalance each other with less guidance than you usually provide.

Anyway, this sonnet doesn't move me quite as effectively as the previous two did. (Perhaps the effusive turn is just a touch too telly about the narrator's being swept away by the musical memory, and some part of me is resisting that? Or maybe it's just that "Then," plus the past-tense verbs in that line, don't form a sturdy enough lynchpin for the volta to swing satisfactorily into the present, which is where I think a reminiscence needs to end.)

Not sure if that reaction is helpful to know, but I offer it in case it is.

Julie, it helps to know that the turn is not working for you. What I am trying to suggest is that the silence and control of her life on the surface gave no hint of the passionate emotion that came out in the music she played. Nothing else gave away anything of what might be going on beneath the surface. So, yes, I was moved by the music, but also astonished that my mother had that hidden beneath her surface. Anyone who does not know those particular pieces of music might miss what I am trying to suggest here, and that is a weakness in the poem. But I am also trying to suggest the emotional power that the music conveyed to me, through my metaphors. The moon here, for me, suggests my mother's isolation, but also the power of what's suppressed.

Susan

But even before the turn, Susan, you mention her "killer tennis serve," fast driving, and outracing yellow lights, so we do have clear indications of her passionate side before you mention her piano playing. In fact, though you assert that she was "calm and self-effacing," the rest of the pre-turn description doesn't in any way paint a picture of someone all that calm or unlikely to be a passionate piano player.

Roger, in the description of her tennis serve and her driving, I was not trying to suggest that she was doing them in an emotional way. She was good at doing both, but calm and controlled. She never lost her cool or got angry.

Susan

The tennis serve and the driving are hints towards that suppressed passion, I think, but I don't know if that's a problem. Does a sonnet's turn have to be totally unanticipated, with no preparation early in the poem? (That's a real question, I'm not sure.)

Hilary, I see the tennis serve and the driving as unexpected, given her outwardly bland and unexceptional exterior. I think the piano playing adds a whole different dimension, so it feels like a turn to me. Sonnets have such variety that I don't think one can be very prescriptive about what they can do.

Susan

Susan, first of all, I like the poem, but I'm not getting much sense of a turn in the sonnet either. All of the things you describe about your mother seem parts of a life well lived. There is a sense of deepening, when you turn to the music, but it doesn't come as a surprise to me - there's no "Well, I would never have expected that" moment which, perhaps, you are hoping for.

It's a lovely tribute to your mother. Would it work better in a form in which your readers are not looking for a turn as such?

I only wonder.

Cheers

David

.
Another beauty.

You've couched this in such a way as to intimate all mothers are a mystery, imo —though others may not agree. It certainly is true in my case.

You've captured so much of her essence, it feels, and in such an adroit way. One doesn't need to know that it refers specifically to your mother. It reaches further and whispers as are we all.

These lines made me smile:

she knew / intricate routes and drove them fast, outracing / yellow lights.

Unspoken speaks to the music that ends the poem. I really love that thought. However, I'm not certain that should be the title.

-

David and Jim,
Your comments have made me wonder whether men and women read this poem differently, or whether I have not managed to convey adequately that suppression is painful. In some people, the pain turns to vinegar; in some, to a pearl. For me, there are overtones of sadness to emotion that can only be expressed through music, even though the music itself is very beautiful. Perhaps I am seeing a turn here that is visible only to me.

Susan

I don't know, Susan, I see the turn. It's subtle, I think, but there.

Your comment about pearl reminds me of an Emily Dickinson poem that I particularly love, "She rose to His Requirement."

Hilary, yes, that Dickinson poem conveys the mixed feelings and paradox that I am trying for, too.

Susan

It was Julie who first raised the question about the turn.

Roger, I didn't mean to suggest that all men read the poem one way and all women read it a different way, just that, on average, women may be more conscious of why a woman of that time would keep silent about any frustrations she felt about her lack of options commensurate with her talents.

Susan

.
I don't think it's a matter of male vs. female perspective. In fact, I do see/feel the turn, and do feel the (unspoken) pain. I would think that would be apparent to anyone who reads it closely. Though I would describe the “turn" as being more of a “sitting down” at the piano. It may help to accentuate the turn by putting space between the first ten lines and the last four. I had meant to suggest that in my previous comment. But yes, to me the turn is subtly palpable.

Your analysis of others’ interpretations/impressions are interesting. I didn't sense any other pain than that of loss as the N explores the mystery of a hidden life. The poem enhances the ordinary mystery that we all grow like a patina as we journey through life. So much is hidden. Only those closest to us recognize what lies hidden. The poem’s most striking effect is the subtle silence that arrives in the last four lines as the music takes over to say what words cannot.

The “turn” element that is so closely associated with the sonnet form, in my albeit homespun experience with poetry, is present in every good poem. It happens wherever the beauty of the words expressed allow the reader to experience transcendence. Light allows insight. I am not a sonneteer.

Although the song titles are enclosed in quotation marks, I wish they were instead italicized. Grammatically, I can understand why you’ve done it that way, but emotionally I would like to see the music titles emphasized with italics. Doing so brings the music to life, imo. I also think it's a cleaner look.

As you often do, you've made me go back and read more closely, and some things have appeared that I didn't catch before when I swept through the poem on the momentum of the sentiment/emotion

These lines now strikes me as being slightly off:

Calm and self-effacing
in public, but a whiz at bridge

I don’t see the logic behind the contrast. Why the “but”?


Interestingly, the final four lines are ambiguous in terms of who exactly is speaking. In a sense, the first ten lines are “now/present” being spoken by the adult narrator seeking clues to the woman’s mystery that lies hidden. However, the last four lines shift to be “then/past” and I’m inclined to think it is the child listening to the music and falling asleep to it. No sadness felt; at least not from the child’s perspective.

.

Jim, when readers don't mention any perception of underlying pain, and when they say they don't sense a turn, I have to wonder whether they are picking up on what I intended. As a child, I was simply bowled over by the power and passion of the playing; as an adult, I view that passion through a different lens. So, I would say that the last four lines state what the child perceived, but in the context of the rest of the poem, what the adult sensed about the source of that passion exists as well. Or so I would like to think.

The lines "Calm and self-effacing / in public, but a whiz at bridge" were meant to suggest that anyone who met her for the first time would not pay any attention to her and would tend to underestimate her abilities at bridge or anything else--until he or she saw her in action. Perhaps "whiz" is not forceful enough. I would use "formidable" except that it doesn't fit in the line.

I have revisited the issue of italics in the last line. Typically, the title of a work that is long and complete in itself goes into italics, and short works or works that are part of a longer work go into quotation marks. The former is true of Moonlight Sonata, so I have changed that to italics, but "Clair de Lune" is part of a longer work, so I am leaving that in quotation marks.

Susan

Hi Susan,
You could get rid of 'in public', since it is implied. That would give more room to describe her card playing skill. You've already used 'killer' though....I wondered about 'shark', to give an impression of that predator lurking below the surface, but I think the gambling connotation is too strong. Maybe 'ace'?

Mary, I have taken your suggestion of "ace" for "whiz." I was tempted by "tiger shark," but that might have overly sinister connotations.

Susan

Beautiful, Susan. Those small revisions work well. I'm still not overly fond of the title, although it is an improvement on "Woman of Mystery."

Thanks, Cathy. I never meant "Woman of Mystery" to be the real title. That was more tongue in cheek. I am glad that you think the changes are improvements.

Susan