Less Than or Equal To

I'm feeling like 3/5 of a person lately, what with Obama and California's ruling.

It's funny how "the establishment" won't acknowledge its subjection of GLBTQ citizens as second-class citizens.

America: Where Freedom Isn't Free.

Robyn Schiff

Robyn Schiff’s Run-ons: H5N1

A majority of the poems in Robyn Schiff’s book, Revolver, are composed of lengthy run-on sentences. The poem H5N1 is no exception to this, but it is a clear example as to how Schiff is able to manage and manipulate the run-ons in such a way as being effective.

The first stanza in the poem (10 lines long, averaging 10 syllables to each line) is one big sentence. Yes it’s mixed in with a few commas and one semicolon to break it up, but it is notably a sizeable run-on. We read through four lines before we even get to the first substantial break, a semicolon:

My mask aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

my lungs, as though the inhale/exhale valve

I tightened to filter the avian strain

excludes bacteria blood needs to have; (l. 1-4).

After that, there are 6 lines of enjambment and flow until we get to the end of the stanza with a period. Despite the potential overwhelming nature of run-ons though, we are able to stomach them through Schiff’s use of line breaks. As seen in the first four lines, the line breaks help to quarantine thoughts and administer the weight of a run-on in several doses.

Schiff also makes the run-ons easy to digest at first by using a rhyme scheme. The lines end with rhymes: a, b, a, b, c, d, e, c, d, e. The first stanza does this exactly, whereas the second begins to breakdown in the middle. The third stanza follows the scheme, with the exception of two lines (b and b). Then, the fourth stanza applies the rhymes unerringly again. Even though these rhymes are explicit, we don’t come to expect them as we normally would because of Schiff’s use of run-on. The run-ons create a long-winded breath, making the end rhymes feel further apart than they actually are. And, the end rhymes assist the run-ons by subconsciously making them seem not so long. Hence, there is a push and pull effect between the run-ons and rhymes that keeps us balanced as readers.

By the time we get to stanzas five, six, and seven however, the rhyme scheme is lost. This might be argued as being detrimental to the poem and leading us astray. But, it could also be said that by this point in the poem (40 lines in) we are accustomed to her use of run-ons and no longer need the assistance of rhymes.

What’s more with Schiff’s run-ons is that they act as efficient tools for her to move from one subject to the next, from one place to another, without disruption. This is easily seen in the fifth stanza:

but in the diseased light the building looks

to me like the Pentagon and flying toward it

my perspective matches the one from the

cockpit window of the hijacked jet

if fever can be said to concentrate

all the heavenly glare that must have bounced

off the cars parked in the secure lot at

9:43 AM,

for here there is no light, save from the warehouse

loading dock where an unmarked freight (l. 41-50).

Here, she flows from the Pentagon, to the jet that crashed into it on 9/11, to its parking lot, and then to a warehouse loading dock. The biggest jump takes place between the 9/11 references to the loading dock, which is facilitated by being run-on. This style of association keeps our minds running and allows her to pull off the leaps she takes to bring in new mental images because of the momentum built. When we’re running from one line to the next, we don’t stop to take deep breaths or think about how the subject has changed into something new. Instead, we are forced into going with the flow.

Furthermore, this flow created by Schiff’s run-ons provides the perfect backdrop to highlighting certain lines when she writes in ones that are short and concise. She occasionally breaks up the current of lines and thoughts with something smaller, succinct, catching our attention before it’s drifted away. The first instance of this in H5N1 comes in the third stanza, when she breaks after the sixth line and then writes:

And who would not kiss the head of a swan

just to try to memorize

the softness of something wild? I should, (l. 7-9).

We are pulled back into the poem with a fresh sense this brevity produces. And, since these smaller lines appear more infrequently than the run-ons, they act as ornate features in the piece, making them arguably the strongest lines in the poem, treats. Further, these brief structures amid the lengthy run-ons help to set the pace at which we read. This is evident at the end of the poem, when we get a series of short sentences:

our vows. The groom’s cake is packing tape.

The bride’s cake is Styrofoam. My blood

is something blue before I cough it up. (l. 68-70).

While Schiff composes the poem with run-ons, and we see several shorter lines that break it up, this the only instance where we get three sentences with three lines in a row. By stopping us so repeatedly here, we slow down from the long run we’ve had throughout the poem. It eases us out of the piece, allowing us to breathe again, just as a runner’s cool-down would do.

Thus, with line breaks, rhyme schemes, subject/association flow and occasional brevity, Schiff manages and manipulates run-ons. What would be typically taken as grammatical flaw, she takes advantage of, pacing us with poetic devices. H5N1 is an effective poem because of these uses, the way it reads. The title translates into what is commonly known as “bird flu,” a respiratory disease; and, like a respiratory disease, this poem affects us in the way we breathe.

Annotation

Kristy Bowen’s Command: a short history of the corset

Femininity and gender are recurring themes in Kristy Bowen’s work throughout her book, in the bird museum; however, she explores these with a great degree of direction, with authority that’s often characterized as masculine. Her first poem in the book (pg. 13), a short history of the corset exemplifies this strong voice in what would be generally considered a “soft” subject, written by a female poet. Yet, from the beginning, we are taken by her assertion:

Note the necessity of small hands, keyholes.

A dilation of the eyes, the haunted cabinet. (l. 1-2)

We, the audience, begin the poem taking her order to “Note” with the first line. This first stanza, a set of couplets (non-rhyming and end-stopped), is instructional, where the second person “you” is understood and carried into the second line of descriptive listing. This is a poet who is giving orders, and we are taking them; we take them through the next few stanzas.

Her second stanza moves the poem forward by taking instruction and combining it with simile. It starts off with a simile and reads almost like a manual:

Like in dancing:

lift the torso from the hips like an egg

from an eggcup, and let the chest

lead as if being drawn forwards

by an upward pulling string. (l. 3-7)

Images are built here with the similes employed. We see how a corset might be put on, the motion in something known for its stiffness. The line, “let the chest / lead” is particularly evocative not only for its use in the instruction of corset assembly, but because it is in formation with Bowen’s use of directives thus far; “the chest” signifies womanhood/woman, and she is to lead; she could be taken to mean “listen to me, let me do the talking”. Hence, Bowen’s strong voice is developed in her second stanza with directives, similes and an instruction-manual style.

The use of language in her third stanza begins to break down the directive, but is still very referential to guidebooks:

Taken from the latin, corps,

but then all nouns are accidental.

All grammer, merely chance. (l. 8-10)

The first line of this stanza is where Bowen begins to pull back on directive commands; “Taken” instead of “Take” is an easy way for her to alter the flow of the poem and ease us. However, it is still guiding, like a manual, in that it is how the word ‘corset’ would appear in a dictionary’s listing. Also, the way line 9 begins with “but”, it acts as a first point of concession in the poem; even with the acknowledgement of nouns being “accidental”. The poet lightens the tight grip she has had on the reader in this stanza of the poem with these concessions and softer voice. Still, she continues with her technique of directing us.

The fourth stanza of the poem is where Bowen really breaks down her use of directive language:

We understand

no more than a pale lick of skin

beneath bone, the sighs

of cloakrooms or lilacs. (l. 11-14)

With “We”, Bowen automatically drops the understood “you” that had been carried throughout much of the poem thus far. This first person plural is inclusive and makes an intimate connection between the poet and reader at a crucial point in the poem, where new meanings are developed with images employed. In this stanza, Bowen refers to the “skin” under (whale “bone”) buttons of a corset, which drives us to the bare nudity beneath clothing; a truly intimate moment where the dramatic shift in language is befitting.

Yet she pulls out of the proximity first person plural provided when she goes into the fifth stanza:

While hardly fit for bird calling or orchards,

the body requires correction, the borders defined. (l. 15-16)

Bowen begins to weld back the authoritative, directive voice by employing a third-person voice here. This third person is semi-omniscient in its knowledge about what “the body” needs, definition. And, this definition begins to manifest itself in the shape of the poem itself, too; this is another end-stopped couplet, like the first stanza. However, this couplet has a slant rhyme to it, with “orchards” and “borders defined”. Thus, Bowen’s poem begins to take on a more formal aspect, something similar to the formality of a corset.

This same formality is replicated in the final stanza of the piece, where Bowen shifts the voice of the speaker again:

See how easily one could slip outside of a story.

Even through a locked door, quietly. (l. 17-18)

The strong, commanding directive is resurrected here with “See”, where ‘you’, the reader, is understood. Unlike how she began the poem telling us to merely “Note”, she now gives us a word with more immediacy, more power. We are instructed to recognize the ease “one”/a woman/the speaker maybe (?) can escape the boundaries of a corset. Despite the formality of the slant rhymes, “story” and “quietly” are just that, slanted. They are not pure form as they are only half-rhymed; and with ease, the poet has thus escaped the confines of form. Hence, the voice in this stanza is most authoritative in not only the shape of the language she uses, but the point she proves.

The adaptive and evolving voice Kristy Bowen commands throughout this poem is masterful, which is most likely why it is the first poem to appear in the book; it is a good piece to lead with. She explores gender through the corset, a typically female-oriented object, with a strong (oftentimes considered as masculine) voice. So, she breaks the mold; and what’s more, she breaks form while still using formal elements with slant rhymes and instructional verbiage. Her voice and form leave us at the end of the poem wanting more, awaiting her next order.

Death & AIDS

The only sad thing about my death is that I won't get to write about it.

This came to me during an illness I'd battled the entirety this week. Feeble, I found a trip to the grocery store too cumbersome for me. I hate it when illness brings you down like that, when it hurts to comb your hair and it feels as if your balls have sucked up into you. You are not so kindly reminded that you are mortal. It's a whisper into your attentive ear that your life may be snuffed out at any moment.

Speaking of illness, I had signed up for the Chicago Marathon and am training with the AIDS Foundation of Chicago.

http://afc.aidschicago.org/netcommunity/aarondelee

Today was my first run with the group. I placed into a 9minute/mile pace group, and am happy with my journey into this endeavor. Though I don't have AIDS, nor do I know anyone close to me with it, it's still an epidemic disease (bigger than swine flu!) that affects millions of people the world over, gay and straight. It is a disease that wiped out a generation of gay people in my native land, and that is something we are all the less because. Rampant in many communities still, and continuing the tradition of stigmatizing individuals, I believe this cause worthy of taking up, and thus I have. Here's to a summer of Saturday morning runs and fundraising to try and make this world a better place!