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When I was writing my review<\/a> for Juliana Spahr’s<\/a> book of poems, Well Then There Now<\/a>, I thought I would describe her use of pronouns, which seemed very cubist to me. Then I ended up writing about the biography of the poems melding with the autobiography of the poet. I guess reviews are like poems–they never turn out the way you think they will! When I was writing my review for Juliana Spahr’s book of poems, Well Then There Now, I thought I would describe her use of pronouns, which seemed very cubist to me. Then I ended up writing about the biography of … Continue reading
\nI like the way Spahr narrates many of her poems in the collective “we,” using a choral technique to embody the universal nature of experience. Here’s an excerpt from “Gentle Now, Don’t Add to Heartache”:
\nWe come into the world.
\nWe come into the world and there it is.
\nThe sun is there.
\nThe brown of the river leading to the blue and the brown
\nof the ocean is there.
\nSalmon and eels are there moving between the brown
\nand the brown and the blue.
\nThe green of the land is there.
\nElders and youngers are there.
\nWe come into the world and we are there.
\nAnd we begin to breathe.
\nWe come into the world and there it is.
\nWe come into the world without and we breathe it in.
\nWe come into the world and begin to move between the
\nbrown and the blue and the green of it.
\nBut I think her boldest move, pronoun-wise, is seen in this snippet of the poem, “Unnamed Dragonfly Species,” which is narrated by an unnamed “they”:
\nThey heard about all this cracking and breaking away on the news
\nand then they began to search over the internet for information
\non what was going on. Blue Whale<\/strong> On the internet they found an
\nanimation of the piece of the Antarctic Pine Island glacier breaking
\noff. Bluebreast Darter<\/strong> After they found this, they often called this
\nanimation up and just watched it over and over on their screen in
\ntheir dimly lit room. Blue-spotted Salamander<\/strong>. . .
\nThe descriptions and thoughts in the poem can be assumed to be the speaker’s own, but she chooses to write from the viewpoint of the other, which leads the reader to imagine that the speaker is part of a subgroup of people doing the same thing in different parts of the world, having the same thoughts and worries and hopes. By acknowledging that she is a part of this subgroup, the poet also places herself in opposition to those who aren’t doing what she is. She becomes part of the “they” of the poem.\u00a0Wow, being a cubist poet is kind of a yoga-like activity, isn’t it?
\nI really admire Juliana Spahr’s use of pronouns–by writing poems from different vantage points, she expresses the presence of an “I” in “we,” “they,” and even “you.”\u00a0To be \u00a0able to occupy so many perspectives at once seems like a very cubist position!
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