[Julie Steiner]

NOTES ON THE POEM CHOICE:

This is the kind of poem that women get slammed for writing, for two reasons. First, and most obviously, the subject is a domestic chore. How dull is that? Second, this poem's "message" has more to do with the establishment of a mood than with the articulation of an argument or narrative. As a result, nothing really happens. The poem ends almost literally where it begins, with the repetition of lines 2 and 3. There's no forward motion, no development. If the poem takes us anywhere, it's to the laundromat...and who wants to go there who doesn't have to?

[Edited to say: Obviously, that's not my opinion of this poem. But I've seen similar themes and approaches dismissed as Unworthy of the Lofty Pedestal of Poetry, or, worse, regarded as having been written by and for women: chick lit.]

I'm not going to congratulate the poet for being male. In fact, it annoys me when male writers get fussed over for bravely tackling traditionally female topics like parenthood and household tasks. The attitude that it's extra cool when men write about such things implies that it's still inevitably clichéd when women do, and that testosterone--not talent--is required to turn such unpromising material into true art.

In my experience, poetic subject matter is never clichéd--or original, for that matter; poetic treatments are.

So I think it's best to focus on the poem itself--what it attempts and what it achieves--rather than the sex of the author. Well, then, why did I bring up the gender issue at all? Because it gave me a convenient excuse to preach against the idea that poems are "about" their subject matter or primary images--which happens to be an idea which penalizes women more often than men.

Returning to the topic of repetition (heh!), this poem isn't a triolet, but it faces the same challenge that French repeating forms do: namely, how to keep the repetition from feeling redundant. Some poets try to make each iteration of a repetend slightly different, either by investing the same words with different meanings, rearranging the punctuation, or actually changing some of the text. But in the case of this poem, keeping the repeated lines identical fits perfectly with the sense of circular motion.

And I really do see those two identical lines differently, after the butterflies' fading is mentioned. On a literal level, I've become aware that the relentless swirling of water and suds is directly responsible for that fading effect. And focusing on the depictions of butterflies has momentarily turned them into actual butterflies, just long enough to take my thoughts out into the real world...where there is also circular motion going on, constantly. The repetend encourages me to take a perspective farther out still, and consider our round planet from space, with its water and colors and sudsy swirls of cloud, rather like the round window of a front-loading washer. I ponder the fact that we measure time in planetary turns, and I think of how those time-turns eventually cause the beauty of all living things to fade, as surely as the agitation of the washing machine is fading the butterflies on that poor little panty.

That is not the only possible interpretation, and I like that. Perhaps the fact that it is a woman's panty hints that the owner's beauty is also fading. Perhaps the tininess of the pair of underpants indicates that the wearer is a little girl, who cannot remain a little girl forever, to the sadness of the person doing her laundry. Perhaps the fact that the butterfly pattern decorates a delicate, intimate garment, damaged by friction with "other colored clothing" that need never be hidden, suggests something about sexual repression.

The poet has established a sense of perpetual motion, and a rather mantra-like, meditative mood...but the particular significance is left to the reader's imagination.

NOTES ON THE TRANSLATION:

The main difference I notice between the original and the verse translation is the role of verbs...which, in a poem "more about mood than message," is crucial.

The Spanish begins with a verb, gira: "turns, spins, rotates, revolves". The activity of that verb is further intensified with repetition, illustrating the repetitive action itself. To me, the English construction "Round and round...(line 2)...(line 3)...is" does not connote the same intensity of action: the frenetic verb has been downgraded to a mere state of being, and even that gets postponed until line 4. I would prefer something like "It spins and spins", or maybe "It swirls and swirls", followed by the prepositional phrases, followed by a colon to introduce the mysterious subject, the pair of underpants.

Changing the active "se destiñen" to the participle "fading" also sacrifices some of the original's frenzied motion. Before I read the Spanish, I had thought that the panty, rather than the butterflies, was fading...which is a far less interesting idea. I'd suggest either "which fade" there, or something to play up the similarity between se destiñen, "they fade" and destino, "destiny": "fated to fade," perhaps? (Nah, I think I'd prefer the active verb to the pun. Again, I think it's important to use active verbs to maintain that sense of relentless motion.)

One of the things I most like about the translation is the alliteration of t's and p's in lines 4 and 5: is a tiny pair of underpants / patterned with butterflies. The effect isn't overly dramatic, but I do notice it, and find it beautiful. Its sonic pattern to help me to imagine the visual pattern.