[FOsen]

This gets my vote, too.

Frank

[Rhina P. Espaillat]

I read the scene as a photograph being contemplated because 1) the title suggests the parents are already dead; 2) the light is described as slowing and then faltering, and then picking out two details, both metal, which provide light that can be "read by." That sounds like the glints of light in a picture.

Then the second stanza uses verbs in the present tense, but the third stanza, after the quotation from the mother, uses the past tense, as if the speeaker were remembering events. The switching of tenses in the following stanzas suggests recollection of a time when the speaker read to his parents, who are now dead, "sailing away" and leaving the reader to "lullaby them."

Have I been too literal in my reading of the title, or in my interpretation of the closing lines? He does mention the "all but failing" breeze that may be their breath, but then they "too briefly sigh," so I can't tell if they're still breathing or not. Does he mean that his parents are "as good as" corpses?

[Janet Kenny]

When I first read the poem (I love it) the parents were already dead and the poet was reading to their remembered selves. It still suggests that to me.

Perhaps our personal circumstances create the poem?
Janet

[Janice D. Soderling]

How the heck did I miss this poem! I think I live on this site and still I have not read it until now. Wonderful! And I'm glad it was chosen.

[Tim Murphy]

From first posting, I've read this along Maryann's lines, not that I dispute the validity of Rhina's take, which offers its own satisfactions. Just read the first chapter, as though they were expecting a novel or travelogue. Fortunately, my parents were so on the ball, such great poetry teachers, that I didn't have this problem. But many of my friends have been in like case.

[Rose Kelleher]

In favorable reviews of formalists' work, I've noticed, people are fond of downplaying the importance of form. So-and-so works in form, but doesn't make a big deal out of it; doesn't stick to it too rigidly; it's the content that's important. This is probably a reaction to the charge that some formalists value form above all else and don't pay enough attention to content. Reading this poem, though, I'm struck by the beauty of the form. Yeah, yeah, you could make all kinds of fancy arguments about how this particular form is a good match for this particular theme, and that's why the poet chose it, but it would be BS (as are most of the justifications-in-hindsight that critics are so fond of inventing for poems written by famous poets, without extending the same courtesy to unknowns), and the truth is, the form itself is lovely. Those trimeter lines with their feminine endings, and the way they tie the stanzas together in twos, are just gorgeous. If this were written another way, it would not be the same poem.

[Michael Cantor]

My understanding of the poem was the same as Maryann's.

This one is admirable - one of the best posted to date. The voice is consistent all the way through, the interlocking rhymes work well, and it all flows naturally and unobtrusively. What I particularly admire is how carefully the relationship is drawn, so that it portrays tenderness and affection toward ageing parents without a hint of either condescension or saccharine.

[David Rosenthal]

Beautiful and unforgettable. The movement from snoring to breath to wheeze to breeze to sigh is so evocative, it makes me think I have memories I don't have yet. And verbing "lullaby" is an inspired move.

David R.

[Rick Mullin]

I remember this one very well.

It exemplifies the kind of at-the-edge surrealism typical of the best writing of the early twentieth century.

It has a daring psychological aspect of self-confrontation that I think is its most effective dream-like quality.

Rick

[This message has been edited by Rick Mullin (edited December 14, 2008).]

[R. Nemo Hill]

Thanks for all the comments on this one. I should mention that Maryann's reading was the one I intended...as far as intentions go...

It is interesting, Rhina, that you viewed this from the angle of looking at a photograph: in many ways I was trying to make the present moment into a photograph. There was no small degree of poetic license taken in the opening stanzas (stanzas that I remember some readers, including Alan Sullivan, thought might be dropped) with their camera-like zooming in on the glints of light "to read by". These stanzas for me are a sort of passage between normal time and the poetic time evoked by the experience which the poem attempts to preserve: like any Polaroid, the moment is thus pickled in light. The switch in tense you mentioned was an attempt to relate the events in the immediate past that led up to this stilled photo of a moment. And the title was an attempt at dark humor to leaven the scene (a humor I remember Tim objecting to at the time): the joke being to fantasize that the parents are dead and not just sleeping. In a way, Rhina, your seeing this as an old photograph makes me feel that my strategy of stopping time and light has been at least partially successful on a level I wasn't able to anticipate. And poetic success on an unforeseen level, well, that's one name of the game!

This poem was the first I wrote in 2008, a year in which I vowed to take Rilke's dictum more to heart: "A poem is good if it is born from necessity." Like all relatively unknown poets in middle age, I have an enormous quantity of work stacked up on both real and virtual desks, and have come to a decision that perhaps I write too much. This poem gestated for a long time, and then insisted on being given form. The fact that it has been so well and thoughtfully received is gratifying, and makes me realize that one heartfelt 'picture' may indeed be worth a thousand words.

Happy New Year, all.

Nemo