Allegory on the Art of Making Poetry: The Lost Alphabet

“I’m working with a family of flower feeders,” is what a nameless narrator shares with us, an ardent naturalist who travels to a nameless village to study moths.  Early on, it’s clear the text hinges on the narrators routine observations of these ‘specimens,’ but at heart Olstein uses this instance as representative of even greater thematic concerns: questioning propinquity and a pursuit of knowledge.

Although a bit hard to follow and not necessarily my favorite work that we have encountered this semester, The Lost Alphabet leaves much to be discussed.  My biggest take away was Olstein’s development of the narrator and her narrative technique that cleverly holds the reader’s attention.  Retaining epistolary undertones, the text moves from poetic to documentary to diary-like.  In select instances, we are given a glimpse into Olstein’s more personal thoughts, readily tangible to the reader, “Some mornings I’m filled with longing, with sadness that has no cause” (35), and become more bold and apparent by the book’s end, “In wanting to show the best of myself, I reveal only a fraction” (67).  The snippets are fantastical notions, constructing a dream-like world of fiction.  This is furthered by the many proverbs and sentiments sprinkled throughout, “Am I meant simply to observe, to record?” (55) and “How will I know when this work is done?” (56).  By doing so, Olstein strikes a balance between the provincial and personal in her own lyrical manner, reigning in the reader to an inventive and imaginative world.

Narration is best depicted in the poem entitled, “[the immovable moves]” where the reader is given a very precise instance that is broadened before our very eyes, reflective of a much larger conceptual issue at hand.  Here we exhibit the “nature” and observance of the pursuit of knowledge:

I have learned to peer at specimens through a small crack at the center of my fist. It’s a habit herders use for distance: vision is concentrated, the crude tunnel brings into focus whatever small expanse lies on the other side, something in the narrowing magnifies what remains. At the table, my hand tires of clenching, my left eye of closing, my right of its squint, but the effect: a blurred carpet of wing becomes a careful weave of eyelashes colored, curved, exquisitely laid. It is a lens for looking at fractions; I’m unable to bring even a whole antenna or eye into view. The result is kaleidoscopic: I see one sharp fragment after another break clean before me, piece it to the others in my mind’s eye.

Again in a uniquely epistolary tone, Olstein posits what it means to hold and discover knowledge that is inextricably linked to the creativity of the natural world--a passage definitely worthy of 'emulating.'

When two points join, the suspense will be over

In Er’s “Verse on Birds,” the poem titled “Bridge Under Construction” spoke to me most.  Unlike the other texts we’ve encountered in class, it’s apparent the impact of diction and language is lost from the Chinese translation.  However, I don’t think it matter much because for the reader as the message is still quite compelling and clear.  Er’s style is prophetic, awkward, and at times downright beautiful.  I appreciate the strong affinity to the natural world, love, and light.

What I am most inspired by in “Bridge Under Construction” is the statements Er makes in a quick and concise form.  It opens with a beautiful image, “When two points join, the suspense will be over.”  From the onset, we know this will be a poem about love.  Again, Er fantastically employs a series of images that bring the natural world to life, “[probing] the bottomless heart of the river,” “[spreading] its wide shoulders,” and “flowing water tenderness.”  These snapshots allow us to archive a still-life memory of the setting Er is creating—a skillful technique that the reader can only but help to admire (and emulate).  Another powerful series of lines are viewed when Er brings up the questions love: “Birds above natural immovable, mountain embraces, huts, houses, highrises, Is this it, love? Calm surface, yellow water, yellow soil.”  As the reader we distill these images of a place that is unknown to most but familiarized and made almost sacred.  

On a final note, we must consider the complexities of Er’s poems.  It takes several reads to really plow through the meaning behind Er’s words.  There are two lines that puzzle me being the mentioning of the seventh and tenth layers of the yellow soil, which I believe are used to express the passage of time, however, I could be mistaken.  The stand out awkwardly against the rest of the poem—and I think it’s intentionally on Er’s part.

 

Longingly

Longingly I look at the old tractor.  I listen to the rattled chug of the engine as it spits and gasps for life.  

Longingly I smell the dewy grass on a clear spring morning and at the mere thought of it, imaginary mist tingling my nose.  Longingly I savor the sour bit of dirt and sweat the collect around my kerchief planting the rows.  Longingly I touch the raw cattle hide saddle hung loosely around the barn door—abandoned as if it has no owner.  Longingly I live for those days growing up on the farm when life was much simpler.

A River Dies of Thirst

Darwish is the premier poetic voice of the Palestinian people . . . lyrical, imagistic, plaintive, haunting, always passionate, and elegant – and never anything less than free – what he would dream for all his people—Naomi Shihab Nyei

What I think I enjoyed most about Mahmoud Darwish’s A River Dies of Thirst is its format.  I appreciated the manner in which Darwish fuses poetry and prose into a sleuth of compelling and provocative mini pieces.  It was inspiring to see how he was able to carry an ongoing conversation through each reflection, often circling back to the precariousness of life, to meditations on the human condition, or to the nature of love, loss, and death. 

In “the colour yellow,” Darwish is able to take something a simple as a yellow flower, and through personification and detailed imagery applies it on a much larger scale.  As the reader we are able to trace this technique in a series of steps.  First, the significance of the object is identified being a yellow flower as a messenger of spring, in the context of a real life case where a woman presents the narrator with one: “I envy her this focus that transports her far away from our fragile life” (21).  The case is vividly and beautifully broadened at another level,  “..we end up reflecting one another’s translucence.”  We are given time to relish in the narrators construct of the object as it’s given human-like attributes—the flower is personified with having a “hoarse voice,” and emitting a “neutral tone.”  And then in an instant the narrator takes us out of the comfort of a yellow flower and into the reality of the situation, “If there is any point of jealousy—then it is that we view our surroundings with the heroic spirit of one defeated, and learn to focus on correcting our mistakes in honorable contests.”  The development and format of this passage is one that best conveys Darwish’s sense of style.  This process is also fantastically carried out in the title poem “a river dies of thirst” where the river is given human qualities of laughing and singing—but starkly juxtaposed with a bleak image of death at its end (36).

As this text is translated, I’m wondering if the images and lexicon of language carry over well in English.  Often times a lot is lost in translation.  At heart, Darwish appears to be most fascinated with truth—and how it is (or is not) derived from dream and myth.  From this text, I was inspired to draft sketch pages based off of Darwish’s style and form.