Welcome to Pick-Up Line! My newest feature to this blog, in addition to my other features Interesting or Stupid?, Meta Moment, and Quick Chat, which you should catch up on *wink wink* In Pick-Up Line, I will discuss in-depth one line, or several, of a poem, or a sentence(s) of prose. I have found that when I read something, a line or two from it echoes in my mind after I've finished reading it for one reason or another. And I've named this feature Pick-Up Line to intrigue you, reader, to read the poem or book or collection. This feature will most likely feature poetry, because I think we all need more poetry in our lives, and it can be hard to get into poetry, I admit. So I'm hoping my focus on a line or two is enticing enough to have you read more poetry. Hence, my cheeky title.
Let us begin our first installment! I posted yesterday about The Country Between Us by Carolyn Forché. This book is seriously beautiful, and if you can, read the whole thing. The line I will discuss from The Country Between Us is from the poem 'The Visitor,' which you can find here.
These ideas of a country are interesting because they imply that our 'citizenship' is tied with those we love. It reminds me of something Roberto Bolaño said - one of my absolute favorite authors of all-time. Bolaño was from Chile, and he grew up in various countries in Latin America. He supported the socialist regime in Chile, which was eventually overthrown by dictator Augusto Pinochet. Subsequently, he left Chile, fearing for his life, and because he was dissatisfied and antagonistic towards the prominent literary figures of Chile. Bolaño essentially put himself in exile. In his last interview ever, Bolaño said, 'My only country is my two children and perhaps, though in second place, some moments, streets, faces or books that are in me.'
In Bolaño's quote, and in Forché's poem, what we're seeing is that when you are stripped of the 'country' you were born, maybe even imprisoned by that country, it calls into question your citizenship and allegiance, not in a legal sense, but an existential one: what exactly does the borders and land of a country do for you when they are seemingly against you? When to be on one side of a wall or another means imprisonment or exile? And if we take into account the idea of a country being imagined - as it is implied through Francisco imagining the wind as his wife's breath, and imagining her hand - then that problem is only exacerbated. These delineations are illusory, but in our respective societies, we all commit and agree: yes, this a country. But it is also because of those agreements that a 'small country' can be made out of relationships.
Can I also say how beautiful it is that Forché specifies a small country. The inclusion of the word provides the perfect beat to slow the line and provide space for the gravity of the word 'country' and all that it implies for the poem. Including the word 'small' also shows a tenderness to the relationship, that it is concerned with the small things of feeling someone's breath, of holding someone's hand.
Let me know your thoughts, and if you've read anything by Carolyn Forché, or Roberto Bolaño, who I ALWAYS want to talk about.
Let us begin our first installment! I posted yesterday about The Country Between Us by Carolyn Forché. This book is seriously beautiful, and if you can, read the whole thing. The line I will discuss from The Country Between Us is from the poem 'The Visitor,' which you can find here.
'It is a small country' (line 8)
As you might be able to tell from the title, the idea of a country is central to the text. The title implies distance, and over the course of the collection we see what physical and emotional distance can mean between people. We also see a country being made and unmade, as this book is partly about the Salvadoran Civil War. In the poem, 'The Visitor,' a country is the hand of a lover, the imagining of a hand of a lover, or the wind imagined as the breath of a lover. The wind against the walls of the prison isThere are two definitions of a country here:...his wife's breath
slipping into his cell each night while he
imagines his hand to be hers. It is a small country (lines 6-8).
- It is a physical place, but it is the physical body and breath of his wife.
- It is an imagined place, as Francisco is imagining the body and breath of his wife with him.
These ideas of a country are interesting because they imply that our 'citizenship' is tied with those we love. It reminds me of something Roberto Bolaño said - one of my absolute favorite authors of all-time. Bolaño was from Chile, and he grew up in various countries in Latin America. He supported the socialist regime in Chile, which was eventually overthrown by dictator Augusto Pinochet. Subsequently, he left Chile, fearing for his life, and because he was dissatisfied and antagonistic towards the prominent literary figures of Chile. Bolaño essentially put himself in exile. In his last interview ever, Bolaño said, 'My only country is my two children and perhaps, though in second place, some moments, streets, faces or books that are in me.'
In Bolaño's quote, and in Forché's poem, what we're seeing is that when you are stripped of the 'country' you were born, maybe even imprisoned by that country, it calls into question your citizenship and allegiance, not in a legal sense, but an existential one: what exactly does the borders and land of a country do for you when they are seemingly against you? When to be on one side of a wall or another means imprisonment or exile? And if we take into account the idea of a country being imagined - as it is implied through Francisco imagining the wind as his wife's breath, and imagining her hand - then that problem is only exacerbated. These delineations are illusory, but in our respective societies, we all commit and agree: yes, this a country. But it is also because of those agreements that a 'small country' can be made out of relationships.
Can I also say how beautiful it is that Forché specifies a small country. The inclusion of the word provides the perfect beat to slow the line and provide space for the gravity of the word 'country' and all that it implies for the poem. Including the word 'small' also shows a tenderness to the relationship, that it is concerned with the small things of feeling someone's breath, of holding someone's hand.
Let me know your thoughts, and if you've read anything by Carolyn Forché, or Roberto Bolaño, who I ALWAYS want to talk about.
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