In C.D. Wright’s latest book that I’ve blogged about before, she does something quite interesting. She repeats large portions of her poems. In the second occurrence of the poem “Like Having a Light at Your Back You Can’t See but You Can Still Feel (1),” most of the lines are exact replicas. When my friend and fellow poet Darren Jackson pointed this out to me, I was surprised. I had already read the book a few times and didn’t notice the repetition. I heard echoes, but it wasn’t until I took his advice and tracked the changes that I saw what she was doing. I’m providing both poems here—and I do consider these two poems. I marked the changes in bold.
Like Having a Light at Your Back You Can’t See but You Can Still Feel (1)
By C.D. Wright from Rising, Falling, Hovering (Copper Canyon Press, 2008)
*Note: Many of these stanzas are one-line stanzas. The stanzas with two lines have a space and a half between them, giving the lines a sense of isolation that echoes the tonal isolation.
As if it were streaming into your ear.
The edges of a room long vanished.
She is not really hearing what he’s really saying.
The shine is going out of the ground
but they are sure of their footing.
It’s not that they have been here before, but
they are young and they have water.
There are masses of rose hips and they are noisy.
The forward direction requires almost no effort.
Consonant with this feeling of harmony
comes another, less comfortable.
Not of being lost but of not belonging.
Yet they were not covering the air
with false words.
They moved along without talking,
not touching.
They wore their own smell.
She tastes salt and they must be getting closer.
Others are out there who are drifting.
If this took place anywhere near the presidential palace
It would be nonstop terrifying.
And this could be the reason she has started to scream.
Like Having a Light at Your Back You Can’t See but You can Still Feel (2)
By C.D. Wright from Rising, Falling, Hovering (Copper Canyon Press, 2008)
As if it were streaming into your ear.
The edges of a room long vanished.
She is not really hearing what he’s really saying.
The shine is going out of the ground
but they are sure of their footing.
They have been here a thousand and one times.
It’s not that they have been here before, but
they are young and they have water.
There are masses of rose hips and they are noisy.
The forward direction requires almost no effort.
Consonant with this feeling of harmony
comes another, less comfortable.
Not of being lost but of not belonging.
Yet they were not covering the space
with false words.
They moved along without talking,
not touching.
They wore their own smell. The air was salty.
[She tastes salt and they must be getting closer.] *Deleted line.
Others were out there who are drifting.
[If this took place anywhere near the presidential palace
It would be nonstop terrifying.
And this could be the reason she has started to scream.] *Deleted lines. ***All new material begins here.
It is a bay in New England
closed to a shellfishing after heavy rains.
The house is not far from here. Next to the old
burial ground.
Most nights aren’t dark enough to see stars.
If a bad movie, a bad movie. If a bad meal,
a bad meal. If bad wine, bad wine.
They read. And go to bed early. He puts on an eyemask.
She wants a light on. She wants to read.
No, he says. Turn it off.
Let me finish the chapter.
Turn it off, C.
The page then, she says. You have your mask on.
I can still feel it, he says. I can feel it
streaming in my ear. Besides,
he is adamant,
you just go to sleep at night
I go on a journey.
What is a reader to make of repeating portions of a poem? In “(2),” Wright provides nineteen entirely new lines, repeats eighteen lines with slight modifications in three of those lines, and deletes one line entirely, leaving us with a 50/50 split of new to old. This reflects how much of this book functions in terms of these interlocking cycles. One, each character is somehow linked to the other either through global trade, war, cause and effect, and/or relationships. That is one cycle. But also the events cycle, too, such as the repeated lies from the government. To compound and emphasize these cycles, phrases are repeated throughout the book, one being el otro lado. And clearly, portions of poems are repeated, too.
My first thought when I realized she succeeded in repeating not one, but two poems was, “She got away with it. Well done.” I can rattle off hundreds of collections where this repetition would be dull at best, lazy at worst. But here, it works. It works partly because with the additions I feel like I have moved to a new place. In “(1),” I’m not entirely sure where I am. Perhaps the reader is a witness to a couple crossing the border illegally? Maybe not. In “(2),” Wright directs us to New England, specifically a couple’s bedroom. (The presidential Palace line has been cut, which references Mexico in the first poem.) This change refreshes the poem and emphasizes the simultaneous sense of connectivity and isolation that occurs throughout the book.
The repetition also works because Wright emphasizes that time has passed between these two poems. One, they are placed far apart in the book, one on page 4, the other on page 71. And the slightly modified lines cue us in to this. For example, “She tastes salt” has been changed to “the air was salty,” which not only designates past tense, but also obscures the person. And “are” in line nineteen changes to “were”. These two subtle tense changes allow the poem to expand and take on more cargo.
As in the first version of the poem, Wright is consistent with how she forms her stanzas and line breaks—even down to the exception. In both poems, except for the final lines, if the line is end-stopped, a new stanza begins. If enjambed, (which here is parsed at a natural break in speech), the line becomes a two-line stanza. But in both poems, the final lines break this pattern ending with all one-line stanzas no matter if they are end-stopped lines or not. The effect of this is a pounding home of this sense of isolation coupled with unity. People in these poems are together, yet the feeling is one of distance and isolation which the white space on the page alludes to. All of that is to say the reason why this repetition works for me is that it emphasizes the thematic concerns of the book.
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