Her poem posted on May 26 speaks for itself.
While well-crafted, it has few of the nuances of her
previous poems, as subtle as a punch in the nose.
It reads like a police report, which in some ways it is.
It is an indictment.
I won’t try to dispute the charges here, but rather focus on
its artistry and the points she is trying to make.
The body of the work is built on three stanzas, structured using
parallel phasing, with a few tag-along minor stanza that provide supporting documentation
to each.
The poem is designed to build a case that a crime as been committed,
what’s more implies that she might be in danger physically as well – and that
she has no recourse to get justice.
She starts out with a misdemeanor and what she could do if
her car was stolen, how she could call the cops, maybe get it returned, if not,
then replaced, and then carry on with her life.
The second stanza escalates the crime to a felony, perhaps
even a murder, someone who has threatened her with harm, and still there are
things she could do, call a cop, battle back, or pay the hospital bills. The add
on stanza suggests she might even be fitted with concrete goulashes (as the old
mobsters’ movies used to phrase it) and get to swim with the fishes.
The third stanza elevates the crime to theft of “pieces of
your life,” or places from the past, stolen or poked around in, situations gone
if not forgotten.
Resurrecting these by poking through the ashes of the past
prevents her from getting on with her life as she is now.
The poem suggests she has no way to get justice for this
kind of theft. She finds herself caught between what she once was and what her
attacker is trying to make her out to be.
The tone of the poem is a kind of controlled rage, differing
from the emotional explosions of some earlier poems. This is a calculated argument,
much like what a prosecutor would make when summing up his or her case before a
jury. The poem argues for the potential for violence, and the apparent deliberate
attempt to cause her harm.
The language of the poem is specific and direct, making it
clear that a line has been crossed and that there is no turning back.
But the poem does take a shot at her attacker, comparing him
to a child who has stolen candy, sick from over consumption, an emotional and
political assassin, who seems to take pleasure in his crime.
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