Poems of Marilyn Hacker
So we're assigned to write a villanelle for my Literary Analysis class. The professor gave us some examples, but none of them showed me what I thought a villanelle could be. But then I found this one:
Villanelle for D.G.B.
Every day our bodies separate,
exploded torn and dazed.
Not understanding what we celebrate
we grope through languages and hesitate
and touch each other, speechless and amazed;
and every day our bodies separate
us farther from our planned, deliberate
ironic lives. I am afraid, disphased,
not understanding what we celebrate
when our fused limbs and lips communicate
the unlettered power we have raised.
Every day our bodies' separate
routines are harder to perpetuate.
In wordless darkness we learn wordless praise,
not understanding what we celebrate;
wake to ourselves, exhausted, in the late
morning as the wind tears off the haze,
not understanding how we celebrate
our bodies. Every day we separate.
My awesome prof responded by lending me his only copy of another poem by Marilyn Hacker. She does some amazing things with rhyme.
Wednesday I.D. Clinic
Your words are ones the patients said themselves.
You carry them inside yourself, their vessel.
The widowed black man with two half-white children might
have given them up, have given up, this time
next month. But you don't say: that woman; this man.
You know their faces.You tell me a first name,
temperament and age, even a T-cell
count, if I ask, which will probably be less
than it was. Not always. Someone bursts into tears.
Someone drags his chair closer, to stare
at you, as if your eyes, your collar, your lips,
said more than that sentence. He asks for vitamin pills.
She asks for condoms. He asks for simpler words.
She shifts the murmuring baby, lets him drowse
against her breast, bounces him on her knee,
starts, almost imperceptibly, to keen
a lullaby, or is it a lament?
As your heart beats, you rock her, in a mental
mutual embrace (you've hugged her) which allows
you to breathe with her, pause with her, swallow
the hard words. She's with you when you come downtown
later.You could keep it to yourself.You won't.
Wow.
~v
Villanelle for D.G.B.
Every day our bodies separate,
exploded torn and dazed.
Not understanding what we celebrate
we grope through languages and hesitate
and touch each other, speechless and amazed;
and every day our bodies separate
us farther from our planned, deliberate
ironic lives. I am afraid, disphased,
not understanding what we celebrate
when our fused limbs and lips communicate
the unlettered power we have raised.
Every day our bodies' separate
routines are harder to perpetuate.
In wordless darkness we learn wordless praise,
not understanding what we celebrate;
wake to ourselves, exhausted, in the late
morning as the wind tears off the haze,
not understanding how we celebrate
our bodies. Every day we separate.
My awesome prof responded by lending me his only copy of another poem by Marilyn Hacker. She does some amazing things with rhyme.
Wednesday I.D. Clinic
Your words are ones the patients said themselves.
You carry them inside yourself, their vessel.
The widowed black man with two half-white children might
have given them up, have given up, this time
next month. But you don't say: that woman; this man.
You know their faces.You tell me a first name,
temperament and age, even a T-cell
count, if I ask, which will probably be less
than it was. Not always. Someone bursts into tears.
Someone drags his chair closer, to stare
at you, as if your eyes, your collar, your lips,
said more than that sentence. He asks for vitamin pills.
She asks for condoms. He asks for simpler words.
She shifts the murmuring baby, lets him drowse
against her breast, bounces him on her knee,
starts, almost imperceptibly, to keen
a lullaby, or is it a lament?
As your heart beats, you rock her, in a mental
mutual embrace (you've hugged her) which allows
you to breathe with her, pause with her, swallow
the hard words. She's with you when you come downtown
later.You could keep it to yourself.You won't.
Wow.
~v