[Turner Cassity]

Um Português

      (for Paulo)


That phone line is so old I rarely answer.
Retrieving messages is just routine:
my credit score, pitched sales, the march for cancer,
cheap satellite tv—a general theme.
I’ve been away. Press play, m-hmm, delete...
I’m caught off-guard—and smiling, raise my head.
I recognize your accent instantly
and yet it isn’t you. It says: you’re dead.

The winter fog that rolled in from the coast
would swallow up that old stone house, and hold me
for days on end, alone. That haunts me most.
“You’ve such respect for silence—” you once told me,
“—you leave the room, and gently close the door.”
The ghost in my machine says nothing more.



Comments:

I don’t know how else to say this: in this quite good poem there is a better poem trying to get out. Nothing is easier than to revise the life out of a poem, but in this case revising might help, though I would not presume to suggest what revisions to make.

[Catherine Chandler]

Um Português

In the tempered and subdued language of the first five lines of “Um Português”, the poet lulls us into a rather commonplace scene: a person returns from an extended trip, checks voice mail messages, and deletes most of them as unimportant. With words such as old, rarely, routine, general theme and m-hmm, the reader gets a vivid sense of N’s ennui.

Line 6 changes all that. In the space of three lines, N and the reader are “caught off-guard” and experience first, intense pleasure, then heartbreaking sorrow. I don’t know about others, but often when someone I love dies, regardless of the huge store of memories I may have of that person, there is always one event or one phrase that takes over my mind almost to the exclusion of every other. The sestet, which takes place in the hushed atmosphere of N’s remembrances, is a fine evocation of such an idée fixe, all the more moving because, in order to honor Paulo’s memory, N (though perhaps wishing to cry out in anguish) must respect silence, “leave the room, and gently close the door.”

I believe the most significant line in the sonnet is L14. I’m not sure whether the poet had Ryle’s “ghost in the machine” criticism of mind-body dualism in mind when writing it, or whether the line simply refers to the disembodied voice on N’s answering machine; but the poet has put the metaphysical flea in our ear; and whether or not we believe that only the physical and measurable is real, or whether the mental ghosts in our corporeal “machines” (hearts) are philosophical myths, the fact remains that Paulo was beloved, and that he will never be forgotten.

A memorable and powerfully understated love sonnet.

[John Beaton]

Although the poet handles the lead-in skilfully, eight lines of a fourteen-line poem to set up the premise make me go m-hmm.

The dead-person's-voice-on-the-answering-machine is not a new device.

As drafted, I think it would be better if it ended on L13. The poet doesn't need to spell out "the ghost in the machine!" Anyway, for a poem with a dedication to a deceased loved one, L14 seems to end on a tech sidetrack, not a personal closing thought.

John

[Janice D. Soderling]

The fact that this poem has remained with me since I first read it is either an indication of quality, or that it touched me on a personal level or, most likely, both.

There is so much I like about it, so very much, but most incisive I think is the concept of the "ghost in the machine" with its categorical mistake(s). That turns my thoughts to Koestler (whom I am better acquainted with than Ryle or Descartes, though it was many years ago that I read Koestler's books so I had best not be too big-mouthed here).

The concluding line tells me (though it may not be the author's intent) that N has learned from a stranger of the death of a former lover, and I further read into it that it was N who severed the relationship. It doesn't matter if this is true or not, it is the impression I take away from the poem.

For me the strongest part of the poem is the image of the door being quietly closed as the lover leaves the site of the rendezvous; it imparts a solemnity to the closure.

The opening expresses ennui, but the sestet has a diction that is full of feeling, of mourning; the traditional image of the haunted house (symbolizing the mind in Ns body) which uses winter fog (deliberate forgetfulness) rolling in from the coast around the old stone house (stoicism), locking N in introspection. The words "haunt", "silence", "gently" are esp. poignant.

The closure is two-edged and its ambiguity informs us that the statment is not true, that the "mind in the body" is not silent and the ghost in Ns machine will continue to mourn the former lover's "ghost" in the answering machine and in their shared past.

That is my take on it.

[Cally Conan-Davies]

I agree with all Janice has said - (well said, Janice!).

My favourites of this Bake-off have been the three about dead people. But this one is the only one that has made me cry.

Cally

[Janet Kenny]

I love this poem.
The voice of the dead on the answering machine.
Winter fog.
Wonderful.
Janet

[Tim Murphy]

Like Janet, I adore this poem. In fact I adore a great deal of this man's work. Reading him at his best, I feel like I'm eighteen and falling in love with Kavafy all over again. My favorite of our whole batch.

[Kate Benedict]

It seems to clear to me too that it isn't Paolo's voice on the machine but rather one with an identical accent, a sibling of Paolo's perhaps or a friend from the same country.

Quite stunning here the way a Huge Truth breaks in on the quotidian. The top content is engaging and poignant but the poem also reminds us of what broils below the surface of things, always.

[Chris Childers]

Turner Cassity recommends revision but won't say what needs doing. Well, this is my favorite too so far, & it probably won't end up being revised, but if it were--the assonantal rhymes in the octave feel like a cop-out-- "Routine/theme," "delete/instantly"--though the author wants to show us it was on purpose, by putting them in the A position in each quatrain. "A general theme" feels like a pretty weak phrase to me. Catherine says that the first quatrain or so serves to lull us with its banality, so that we, like the speaker, are caught "off-guard" by the dead man's voice on the recording. I believe it, but could wish those lines accomplished more on a thematic level while still fulfilling their primary purpose. At least, these were my initial reservations, though on re-reading, I'm beginning to discard them.

Keep the last line. The "machine" is both the recording and the network of neurons and synapses we call the mind. The remembered words of the dead man are also very well-chosen.

Chris

[David Rosenthal]

This is very good. The first five lines came just a hair from lulling me to sleep, but the next three not only woke me up, but elevated the previous lines. The sestet is simply beautiful. To write beautifully about the idea of silence is not easy at all, and here it is accomplished.

David R.