[Alexandra Baez]

Hi, Carl. It’s so great seeing another poem of yours here, finally! (I do know that you’ve been busy as all get out on Translation, where I’ve silently admired your work.)

I’m afraid that I didn’t feel confident in my interpretation of the first two stanzas, that the “wrong part of town,” mugger, and kidnapper references spring from the child’s imagination alone.

Here he’s just an incongruous warning that a trip down that street, even in thought, may be painful.

That’s fascinating, but I didn’t really get it—my predominant impression was that “wrong part of town” was meant literally. While obviously, muggers can’t be squirrels, in theory, kidnappers could dress to blend in with nativity sets!

By the end of S2, I’m wondering why the n avoids going down the street if its only threats are imaginary—if they are in fact imaginary (two layers of confusion now). Of course, you’ve not yet introduced the real source of the anxiety. But for me, a strong confusion is set up at the beginning that can’t completely be resolved later. Similarly but less intensely, this confusion re-emerges in the working-class-yet-cheery details of S3 and the “plastic-clad sofa” of S5. I find myself wondering if in presenting these, you mean to be disparaging or affectionate or a bit of both. If the former, I wonder if this attitude is a reason for the n’s avoidance (which your comments suggest that it really isn’t). So based on your comments about this, I’d say it’s important to place a much clearer emphasis on the affection/nostalgia element to make sure this poem is experienced as intended.

Once I gather, in S5, that the real fear is of facing sweet memories that cannot be replicated, I’m in profound and painful sympathy. The last couplet is so poignant in its paradox. (Personally, I do return to my childhood neighborhood, once a week for work, and each time I do, especially around Christmas, I have such a hard time sorting past from present, memory from reality, loss from non-loss. How much of my experience is determined simply by my attitude and how it adjusts itself to each new circumstance?)

On a technical note . . .

Although I do see where you’re coming from in your own readings, in L4, I naturally read this as having a headless first foot, with “blend” and “in” both stressed. Likewise, I perceive the next line as opening with a headless first foot. Part of the reason here, I think, is that the location of stresses on the syllables of “LCD” is not so well defined. While many would accent the last syllable, a lot of other people, I think, give about equal stress to all syllables, since it’s an acronym. (I don’t have a problem with the last line’s meter.) I don’t think it’s a question of whether the meter has been sufficiently established before the above lines or not, but simply whether these lines naturally read as completely anapestic. After all, it’s common in anapestic verse to occasionally vary it up (allowing the readers to take a few breaths) by skipping a few anapests, and quite possibly my expectation of this also inclined me to my readings of Ls 4 and 5.

in the cookie-cut houses of Santa-red brick

I love the way you “Christmas-ize” this description.

And I like the internal sonances of “winks”/”peek”/”think,” and all the w’s of these lines; also the sonances of “clad,” “aghast,” and “ghost.”

In S5, I’m not sure who the “you” is supposed to be, although it’s gripping to think of the n, former resident of the house, cast as an intrusive ghost looking in on it! The psychological reality of this is intense.

The premise behind this poem fascinates me; with a few clumps sifted out, I think it will be marvelous through and through.