[Hilary Biehl]

The Cove

Beneath the tidy march of prose,
a rattle of shells. The teacher has lined
us up like dolls in the bleak, coastal
glare of the mind.

The mud is a little too welcoming
despite its chilly monochrome.
It’s just a field trip, I tell myself.
I want to go home.

One shoe is gone. A bead of blood
gleams on my ankle. Just below,
the clams are waiting. I'm afraid
of what they know.

I hobble and sink. My classmates skim
the surface with an unlikely grace.
For them the mud is only its innocent
upturned face.



title was "Clams"

S3 L1-2 was "A thread of blood / crawls down my ankle."

changed "metallic" to "bleak, coastal"

S3 L3-4 was "hinges creak. I'm afraid to learn / what the clams know"

[Max Goodman]

I'm lost here.

"the metallic/glare of the mind" and oddness seem to signal that this is a dream. There seems to be a field trip in which the children both are and aren't (in the way of some dreams) clams.

The blood and the (offensive?) association between clams and female anatomy suggest that menstruation anxiety may be part of the topic.

For what very little this is probably worth.

[Hilary Biehl]

Oh dear, I wasn't trying to suggest female anatomy? Do you mean the hinges? I will have to change that.

Edited to add that I also changed "metallic," in hopes of locating the poem a bit more in a place. (Though I'm happy to hear it has a dreamlike quality.)

[Susan McLean]

I like it and find the ending particularly powerful and unexpected. For me, the clams suggest both closure and what lies buried beneath the surface. They are like little coffins. The meter seems to stumble a bit in S1L3, and I wondered whether that was intentional, since the speaker seems to be stumbling, too. I didn't necessarily see anything menstrual about the blood, though it is mysterious. I assumed some kind of unintentional self-inflicted injury.

Susan

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Hilary Biehl

Do you mean the hinges?

The clams. It's a weak enough association that your message made me worry I was misremembering, making it up. But a quick web search confirms an extensive slang association. If it's fallen out of use, maybe it won't be an issue for most readers.

[Jim Ramsey]

Hi Hilary,

You have mentioned enjoying the different imaginings of your readers and I am here to serve:

This poem seems to want to tease the reader to make sense of it. Like max says, it seems dreamlike. There are juxtapositions of broad conceits and tangible details. The title does not give anything away that is not in the poem (maybe it should?). The first sentence, “Beneath the tidy march of prose,/ a rattle of shells,” hints that maybe we are headed toward ars poetica. Prose is on the surface, neat and safe, and shells, the clams (representing something other than the tidy march of prose above), are rattling beneath. The surface of the mud is later said to have a chilly monochrome, another hint at the difference between prose and poetry. The last sentence, “For them the mud is only its innocent/upturned face.,” tells us that the classmates walk lightly on the surface of the mud while we know the N in the text of the poem has been both drawn toward and repulsed by the waiting clams that hold some fearful knowledge, perhaps difficult to obtain, for, as readers should know, clams must be cracked open to access their meat and pearls (which I know are more common in oysters FWIW). The N has lost one shoe to the mud, has been scratched and left bleeding, and wants to go home. The N hobbles and sinks into a mud the other students do not seem bothered by. The N senses being different from the other students who walk comfortably with the prose on the surface. Perhaps the N has the misfortune of being a future poet or of having poetic sensibilities, which are both boon and bane to those who have that level of feeling and inclination to be poets. The other students look on the innocent upturned face of the surface, while the N begins to sink unwillingly down to where hidden meaning and hard won treasures lie.

All the best,
Jim

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Hilary—

I like this piece a lot. I read it literally as being about an imaginative little girl on a field trip to the coast to study clams. The last three stanzas clearly describe this event, but the first stanza keeps the reader a bit unsure of where we are and what is happening.

I concluded that the “march of prose” refers to the textbook explanation of mollusks that the students have been reading about in class. This contrasts with the “rattle” of the actual clams. Nice word choice, suggesting a death rattle. The “glare of the mind” refers, I think, to the fears of the N, not shared by her less imaginative classmates.

I wonder if you might find a way to help the reader understand why the N finds the clams so menacing. Perhaps a reference to razor clams? Or the image of a clam clamped onto a toe or finger? I also wonder how she lost a shoe and cut her leg, but I don’t think there’s room to explain. I’ll assume the mud sucked off the shoe, exposing her ankle to a sharp rock.

Nice presentation of how the world that most people see as innocent can be very sinister to a sensitive child.

Glenn

[Hilary Biehl]

Susan, Max, Jim, and Glenn, thanks for chiming in.

Susan, regarding the meter, I was hoping for an intermittent stumbling effect. Some lines are smooth (like the surface of the mud) while others let in a little of that underground chaos and suggest the N's uneven progress over the mud as well. It's a lot to ask of the meter, I suppose.

Jim and Glenn, I like both your interpretations (which are complementary, I think/hope). You are also both correct about the mud sucking off the shoe.

Jim, I will think about whether there is a better title out there.

Max, I had no idea there was this association, but I don't doubt it - I am pretty out of touch when it comes to slang. I'm glad you pointed it out. I am not sure how to get away from that association though without ditching the clams entirely and the poem is, quite literally, about clams. But maybe a different title, as Jim suggested, would help ...

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Hilary Biehl

Max, I had no idea there was this association, but I don't doubt it - I am pretty out of touch when it comes to slang. I'm glad you pointed it out. I am not sure how to get away from that association though without ditching the clams entirely and the poem is, quite literally, about clams. But maybe a different title, as Jim suggested, would help ...

There's no reason a poem about kids and clams should draw that association. It was only my misreading that

Originally Posted by Max Goodman

this is a dream [and] ... the children ... are ... clams.

that brought it into play for me. And, as you can see from my comment, I realized I was on shaky ground and not understanding well.

It was stanza 3, the blood and the speaker's abstract fear that brought the uncertain possibility of menstruation into play for me. So far, no other reader has misread the way I did.

[Jim Ramsey]

Hi Hilary,

I had in mind a title that gives the reader a little more to go on, but if you want to keep a similar title, I would think "Mussels" would work. In fact, I think mussels are even more likely to bed in mud than clams are. The words "clams are waiting" could be changed to "mussels wait" and would preserve the meter. However, the word "coastal" used earlier might imply a tideland near the ocean, and I don't know if mussels can live in brackish water.

Jim