g-poetry379

[g-poetry379]

Week 9: Poetic Reenactment Part II

|> 0:43-0:45

after Tracy Rosenthal's RIRI (RE)VISION and The Crane Wives's "Bitter Medicine"

They shake                swallow the poison I spit                           did You buy black balloons         let me free your bitten tongue                  what I’m selling right here did You buy right clear pills plated      clean up the mess I’m making              here did You buy black tar atop faces                                 (RIGHT) here right clear pills painted                                                                          buy right here on mouths, breasts, and forks             buy You– three pills become two then becomes one Steal all the sympathy

[g-poetry379]

Week 9: Poetic Reenactment Part I

The poem I have chosen to analyze is the one I read aloud in class on page 21 with the timestamp, 01:17:49 - 01:39:21. I chose this poem, not only because it is one that I liked and was drawn to, but because it feels applicable to my own chosen music video. I would like to clarify that my previous statement is a bit of a stretch, but it immediately came to my mind when I was watching the music video for Crane Wives’s “Bitter Medicine” because despite it not being about sexuality or sensuality and its relation to the body, it is about the body and people’s and one’s own perceptions of it. 

The poem begins with the lines “we cock / our heads” which I believe to be self explanatory when looked at alongside the music video, people are cocking their heads while looking at something. Placing this as the first line indicates a confusion at what is being looked at, insinuating that there is something to be figured out in this poem. The plural pronouns also tell the reader that this is a group, that this group of people are acting in a similar way and in a vein of confusion. It is this group sense of confusion that also makes this feel more like a collective than a random group of people. The “we” feels like a collective of like people with similar views. The use of the word “cock” is also intentional, referencing the sexual subject matter of the music video.

The next two lines in the first column read, “to see through / the see-through”. The “see-through” refers literally to the cellophane that covers Rihanna in the music video, however it also refers to trying to see through the persona of Rihanna. Labeling her persona as see-through is interesting because it means two things of opposite ideas. First it could mean that Rihanna is so known that there is nothing to see, because the “we” that is looking already know and have seen everything that needs to be seen. The second thing that this could mean is that the “we” knows nothing about her persona. It is so unknown that people tend to just see through it as if it is not there. Both play into the idea of stars and celebrities discussed in Richard Dyer’s “Heavenly Bodies” as it refers to the persona crafted and the parasocial knowing that exists with celebrities and fans. All together, this column seems to represent a collective voice that is talking in general terms about Rihanna.

The second of the three columns begins with, “I want to use you / I want to throw you away”. The pronoun has now changed from plural to singular. It is no longer a collective looking at Rihanna that is speaking, but rather a single member of that collective. By saying “I want to use you”, they are expressing a want for control over Rihanna and her body. They want to be able to use her to their benefit, but the fact that they are saying this insinuates that they are unable to at the moment. Considering the sexual connotations of the poem, it can be assumed that the narrator is unable to use Rihanna for their own sexual pleasure without feeling bad or without a sense of guilt, but they want to be able to. They want to be in the position of a person that can do such a thing. However, they also do not want to be this person as seen by “I want to throw you away”. The “I” in this column wants to be able to throw Rihanna away, meaning that they want to be able to throw away their sexual desires for Rihanna. This side of the “I” wants to give in to the guilt instead of the pleasure that the previous line wants to give into. The next lines read “I want to paint the American / flag on your body”. The act of painting another person’s body is often seen as sensual, furthering the narrator’s want for pleasure, however, the line break between “I want to paint the American” and “flag on your body” also turns this part of the poem into a commentary on identity. It is not the identity of the narrator that is brought into view, but Rihanna’s or her persona’s. This persona is being branded, dehumanizing her and turning her into a symbol for American pop music. It becomes an act of possession, a claim on Rihanna. The next lines read, “in blood, sperm, and bruises / I want to be another white man”. This furthers the conversation on the persona’s place as a symbol because it explicitly states what Rihanna’s persona is representing, “blood, sperm, and bruises”, red, white, and blue. This alongside the following line, “I want to be another white man” also gives the reader a conclusion to the narrator’s conflict on whether to give in to desire or guilt from the previous lines which is that they decide to lean in to pleasure. This line also brings clarity to the reader, turning the amorphous “I” into a woman. It places the rest of the poem into perspective and makes known that the previously seen guilt came from a point of relatability, of seeing another woman as more than her body and sensuality. However, it also makes the conclusion clear that the narrator wants to be able to throw this guilt away, that they want to be able to just be “another white man” that would not have these complicated thoughts tied to their desire for another woman. The last line in this column reads, “turning trash into art”. This line is connected to the previous one, with a white man turning trash into art being a common way people talk about privilege. Because of this, it can be understood that the narrator wants this privilege, that they want to be able to make something beautiful and desired by others. This line goes back to the dehumanization of Rihanna, however, as her persona becomes the “trash” that is being turned into “art” because the music video places her into the role of a sexually active woman, a role that is often demonized by the public and men in particular, representing the start as “trash”, but a white man have sex with her would turn her into something desirable. By having this, it feels like that narrator is saying that if they are going to give in to their desires, at least let them be someone that can give value to her, to be like a white man that is convinced that what they are doing is good.

The final column, despite the use of “I”, feels like a combination of the “we” and the “I” from the first and second columns respectively. This column reads “Where is she / I’m looking I don’t / see where is she I  / look Where is she / (LOOK) Just look / don’t worry don’t / worry just–”. The reason why I say this feels like a combination of the narrators from the first two parts is because of the frantic nature of this column. The narrator is in a frenzy looking for Rihanna, looking for where she is, where the real her is, and where her persona is. It feels as if the narrator from the second column has become more detached from their guilt, taking a step back to once again be closer to the collective. The constant repetition paired with the difference in format each time adds to the feeling of whiplash as the reader’s eyes go back and forth between the lines and words to make meaning of the repeated phrases and forms, just like how the narrator’s eyes are constantly going back and forth in this scene to look for Rihanna.

[g-poetry379]

Week 8: Poetic Form Poem

Ungnyeo (bear woman) mother I am flattered you call me the son, the founder bringing glory but I am the bear

Didn't you hear? the bear beat the tiger she won without crossing claws she won the body desired by all

A champion, but with weariness laced in her marrow by his design wanting to be wedded and bedded, wanting a purpose

Born was a son lauded by creation, a boy king it shouted leaving a mother behind

Weariness and want gone a bear remains forcefully forgotten, steaming in a form she doesn't recognize, so

mother I am flattered you call me the son, the founder bringing glory but I am the bear

[g-poetry379]

Week 8: Erasure Poem Fan Letter

Arcana The Fool transported back to childhood, infected with the connection of a chain of screams

taking pieces of herself and weaving them to appreciate, for changing

[g-poetry379]

Week 8: Erasure Poem Article

Tide Pool seafloor and soaked birds playing in public view the between inhabited by more than 40 ripples every night

to eat and be eaten by others many quickly perish those that survived more resilient, but not immune

I sank more than five weeks ago hundreds of feet deep but we pull along the seafloor in a dead zone

carrying a current figuring moves in dozens of direction

[g-poetry379]

Week 6: Poetic Reenactment Part II

“she who entangles men”

inspired by Tyehimba Jess's poem, John Lomax Visits Leadbelly in Angola Prison: July, 1933 final stanza taken from interview with Emilee Petersmark

This Cassandra. She directs Apollo’s old curse brandishing camera flashes bathed in neon light. Tie noosed loose around her neck, left for hands, calling for voices to be heard

behind the closed skylights; the children remain trapped in an unwanted revival that calls itself great. She dives into a camera when on stages telling her to stop, cutting the neon

spotlight, and sings old prophecies gone unheeded digging feet inside children’s minds. Harpy’s songs attempt to unearth cement filled boots. A songbird’s shake…a doubt laden rattlesnake’s tail weaving loud

discordant notes…this breeze spit back by someone once close to the sun, scream by scream…

I tried so hard to be digestible for others- less visible and “good” also so very arbitrary but now surrounded by people with no box.

[g-poetry379]

Week 6: Poetic Reenactment Part I

I was going back and forth for a while, contemplating which poem to analyze for this reenactment with so many of them being about identity, one of the primary themes of my musical artist, The Crane Wives. It was in this abundance, however, that I decided to take a different route and look at the outside perspective, ultimately choosing the poem, John Lomax Visits Leadbelly in Angola Prison: July 1933. The poem begins with “This Orpheus. He storms Hades’ steel walls”. Immediately, I was struck with a sense of disconnect. Compared to the prior poems, John Lomax Visits Leadbelly in Angola Prison: July 1933 feels fictional, it lacks the visceral and personal stories that fills the other poems. This is due to the references to the myth of Orpheus and Hades in the first line, it fantasizes this experience. By calling Leadbelly an Orpheus fighting Hades’ walls, he is saying that Leadbelly is a singer, a poet, being placed in the role of a fighter to try and fight an oppressive force he will never be able to realistically beat, only try and resist. He is replacing Leadbelly’s own history and personal experiences with that of a character, creating a persona. The next line is “wielding notes wept by birch and spruce. Guitar”. Keeping the guitar in this line makes it so that it becomes what “birch and spruce” is describing, pointing towards the literal physicality of the guitar which contrasts the personification of the guitar that has been present in many of the other poems. The conscious pairing of “wielding” and “wept” also stood out to me. Wielding as a word feels very sharp despite it requiring a rounded mouth to say because it is most often used alongside weaponry. People wield guns, they wield swords versus hold which is what is typically used for an object like a guitar. This turns Leadbelly’s guitar into a weapon, but more than that “wept” indicates that his pain and sadness is also a weapon, turning his sadness into a tool. With just these two lines it is already clear that Lomax romanticizes Leadbelly’s music and experiences, further leading to the disconnect and discomfort that I feel. The next line reads “spreads her hips over his, sings of mercy,”. The “her” in this line is clearly a reference to the guitar, Stella, but the line break also makes mercy the “her”. Concepts like justice and victory are often personified, and here, mercy is personified to be a woman, a god-like figure. Mercy is spread over him, but is being sung about showing that mercy is a concept or person close to Leadbelly, but that the relationship between them is still one sided, it is one side singing to the other with no response in return. The stanza ends with the line “coaxes his bottlenecked fingers to slide”, a continuation of his relationship with Stella. However, it is also a continuation of mercy. The previous line tells us that mercy is close to him, but unresponsive and this line pushes that narrative, with coax and “bottlenecked fingers” showing that he is unsure of how to proceed with mercy. With coax, he is trying to gently persuade her, but his fingers being bottlenecked, being halted shows that he doesn’t know how to progress, he is stuck in his relationship with mercy. 

The next stanza begins with “the knowing into light; the dead face down”. When considering typical sentence structure and punctuation, this line is a continuation of Leadbelly’s relationships with his guitar and mercy, however, the new stanza creates a separation from these relationships and the image of the gentle story and naivety of Orpheus. It instead recenters this part of the sentence with violence, as indicated by the second part of this line, “the dead face down”. Now instead of his guitar being related to the light, the dead are. The next line mirrors this passage into light, but into dust instead as the line reads, “into dust to find their sorry way home.” This line once again reminded me that Lomax is the narrator as it once again takes on a story-like quality. It feels as if he is saying that now that the dead have come into the light, now that it is known people are dead, they turn into dust and make their way home because they have served their purpose in showing his violence, they are no longer important to the narrative. Lomax’s focus is not on the dead, but rather Leadbelly himself and what they mean for him, hence the next line placing an emphasis on his expression, reading “He smolders into a growl that stops short”. The image of Orpheus is firmly broken, and in its place is a fire as seen through the use of “smolders”. The use of the word growl in this line also furthers the dehumanization that Lomax introduces, once again pushing Leadbelly into the realm of a character and persona more so than a person. The stanza ends with the line, “this side of kill, folds into shuddering”. It picks up where the last line left off, indicating the line that exists between Lomax and Leadbelly in this situation as being people on different sides of “kill”. The line break also relates “this side of kill” to the shuddering in the second half of the line, creating the image of Lomax who represents “this side of kill”, shuddering in response to the growl from the previous line, further cementing a border between him and the Leadbelly he describes in this poem. 

With the way the rest of the poem has built Lomax so far with his dehumanization of Leadbelly and turning him into a persona and story, the next stanza reads as fanaticism, an obsession with something that is separate from himself. The stanza begins with “welts, and smashes through Satan’s warped mirror”. Because of the break in the stanza, “welts” becomes paired with “smashes”, turning into a result of smashing “Satan’s warped mirror”. The introduction of Satan in this scene also brings back the story element that others Leadbelly. The next line reads “screwed tight inside men’s minds. Hurt’s avalanche”, telling readers that Lomax can hear the hurt in Leadbelly’s growl from the previous stanza. The period before “Hurt’s avalanche” separates it from the previous sentence, so although it can be read as being as the thing stuck in his mind, it also places the focus on the power of Leadbelly’s voice to translate those emotions rather than the actual hurt that is in it. The next line, “scrapes my skin loose from sense. This primeval”, only further puts the emphasis on the power of the emotions in his voice than the emotions themselves because this line is an effect of the hurt that Lomax is hearing, but the physical separation of the hurt and its effect creates a metaphorical barrier between the two as well. Lomax also calls this experience primeval, indicating that the hurt he hears, the hurt that seems to scrape his skin loose, is raw and primitive, based on instinct. The final line reads, “archive…this heart thunder lost in a well” and this can be interpreted as Lomax wanting to archive this hurt, this growl that he hears that he believes is lost behind these walls. It was this line that made me really read this stanza as fanaticism, because all Lomax can think of after hearing and feeling all of this is to catalogue Leadbelly’s voice, that effort is where all of his attention is on.

The next stanza begins with the line, “of whispers…this voice of smoke riddled sheen”. The first part of this line is a remnant of the last, the whispers being a part of the well, meaning that other voices are like whispers and insignificant compared to Leadbelly’s voice that is like “heart thunder”. When placed together with “this voice of smoke riddled sheen” however, the whispers become a part of Leadbelly. It works in tandem with “smoke riddled sheen” to change Lomax’s description of Leadbelly’s voice from a growl to something softer. Smoke and whispers give the connotation that this new voice is mysterious, almost as if it is unexpected and could quickly disappear. The following line, “hauling mojo up from hell, chord by chord…” contextualizes his voice. It tells you that this softer voice Lomax is hearing is because it is the start of a song and in doing so, Lomax further creates a separation between Leadbelly and his music, once again hinting at the idea of a persona and a character. This line is also a reference to Orpheus, bringing back the story like quality Lomax is bringing into this meeting with Leadbelly by saying that Leadbelly, like Orpheus, is bringing something up from hell, is bringing energy through his music. 

The final stanza is italicized, giving the feeling that this is a direct quote from Lomax, something that he said aloud. It feels like this stanza is how Lomax presents his experience meeting Leadbelly to others, meanwhile the rest of the poem were his true internal thoughts. The stanza reads, “He sang me a song which I shall copy- / right as soon as I get to Washington / and try to market in sheet music form.”. In my opinion, this is the most straightforward stanza, with Lomax describing his intentions for Leadbelly and his music. What did stand out to me, however, was the line break after copy, placing the emphasis on the artifice of the situation and the copying of his music. It was partially due to this artifice though that I chose this poem. Lomax’s descriptions and copying reads to me as a form of appropriation as he takes what he considers useful from Leadbelly without permission, hence the creation of the persona. A lot of the Crane Wives’s music is also a form of appropriation with the folk tales that they use and draw inspiration from, because despite appropriation having a negative connotation, it does just mean to take for one’s own use without the permission of the owner.

[g-poetry379]

Week 5: Creating a Poetic Form

Folklore Fabrications

Take a folktale from your culture and use it to tell a story about a person, it can be you, it does not have to be, and their relationship with violence (ex. anger, apathy, physical, emotional, etc.). The poem should have four lines per stanza, and only five unique stanzas, but six stanzas total (one stanza must be repeated), and the only punctuation allowed are commas and question marks.

I think the purpose of this poetic form, what can be achieved poetically, is to gain a deeper understanding or see identity from another point of view. Creatively, it forces the writer to look into their own culture and become acquainted with the stories that exist and why they are a part of their culture. Relating these cultural folktales to violence also creates connections as to why these stories still remain culturally significant and to look into violence as a cycle which is important for the present time which is the historical time The Crane Wives occupies.  Many of their songs draw from folklore, their name itself coming from a Japanese story of the Crane Wife. They use these stories to explore identity, their own, their environment’s, their society’s, etc. They have also spoken multiple times on using their music to address a type of generational trauma and the process of trying to heal from it. This healing process is something they do for themselves, but also want for those listening to their music. By having the connection between folktales and violence in this poetic form, writers are likely to encounter their own version of generational trauma and the coming to terms of what that means for the person they are writing about.  In terms of the actual form of the poem, The Crane Wives explore all of this through song which is expansive but also limiting, so each stanza will only have four lines because that is how many lines are in a verse in their music and there can only be five unique stanzas (verse 1, verse 2, verse 3, bridge, chorus), but a single stanza can be repeated in the poem. This is meant to provide poets with the same limits a song does and to try and figure out how to get their point across with a few words. The repetition of a stanza also pushes the writer to search for what resonates the most, what can stand from being repeated, what needs to be repeated. The commas and question marks also aligns with the way The Crane Wives explore the themes in their music, which is a lot of open statements and questions, a way to try and ask and see what is going on because there is no real conclusion to a question of identity and violence, only a closer understanding, hence the lack of the period to mark an end.

[g-poetry379]

Week 5: Creative Research

The Crane Wives are classified as indie folk-rock, which is a subgenre of folk rock, which itself is a fusion between rock and folk music. Folk includes traditional folk music and contemporary folk and they are grouped together despite their differences. Indie folk rock, and folk rock in general, fall into the category of contemporary folk having been a product of the folk music revival in the mid-1960s, mixing sounds from rock music to the acoustic/traditional sounds of folk. While specific phrases vary, introspection/personal reflection, social commentary, and relationships tend to take a forefront in the music of those in the indie folk rock and folk rock genres. These artists, The Crane Wives included, use language to comment on the aforementioned topics, weaving language with a blend of acoustic and electric sounds. 

The band pointed towards the 2016 election and the 2020 pandemic as two cultural present moments that influenced their sound and work. More specifically, they talk about how that period of time caused a lot of doubt and anxiety, constantly being bombarded by the terrible things in the news, but seeing that and trying to take whatever privilege or power they have to try and have a positive effect on themselves and others. They recently partnered with Headcount to try and encourage their fans to be politically active and vote. In terms of happenings in the world when they were born, Emilee Petersmark was born in 1987 which is when the Stock Market Crash of 1987 happened, the first contemporary global financial crisis. 1987 was also when the Iran-Contra affair was nationally addressed.  but I would argue that they didn’t gain popularity until around the start of the pandemic in 2020.

[g-poetry379]

Week 4: Iconic Suite Poem

of Robins and grocery store calendars I. In our family portrait I walk into a poppy-covered kennel, Anais Mitchell sits on the other side listening behind the screen

the day is circled in red, bleeding into the eighteenth and twentieth

casualties, I must confess are comforting, a statistic is familiar

I fear, nothing will remain if it is let go

Are you angry I turned violent, a howling mirror pointed outwards revealing

my image, too far no longer close to the naive Orpheus you sing about

Do you not hear, his lyre in the songs of the children outraged by martial law

Do you not hear his voice in those left to drown by those meant to protect

you may guard him from me, but I am a lover

too, violent to not be a dog with a bloody muzzle but it will never be your blood on my teeth

my care expressed the only way I know, by bearing witness II. Let's play pretend Did you mark the days you won't be here

Would it be easier to mark the ones you will

Do I need to remind you to pay attention

Are my teeth distracting, are they too much or is it the pushed together pieces that make up my ribs Are you wary of the violence threading them together

Did you know they were gifts

Do you even know why they gave

Have you seen his calloused fingers, his curved back

Have you seen her grasping hands, her silent steps

Can you not see his cracked hands grasping smooth waters too many times

Can you not see her bitten nails gripping the marbled driveway

Can you not see them in the birds in the trees wanting to be the breeze III. Have you ever seen him smile cracked hands turned cracked ribs, children become robins in the tree, dreaming of the breeze

my prayer releases into the garden and with it the robins jump

and the robins become cardinals and the cardinals become wrens and the wrens become bats and the bats become wanted become used become replaceable become welcomed

and the tree becomes a willow and the willow becomes a branch and the branch becomes a cave and the cave becomes a home becomes a mantle becomes a picture frame becomes a coffin

and amidst it all I sit in this open kennel, staring up at

robins bordered by sky leaving me in my garden

they are calling, I know I can't ignore their call forever, the object of my witness

no matter how cruel, telling me to lose what threads together

[g-poetry379]

Week 3: Creative Research

Emilee Petersmark, one of the front women of The Crane Wives is queer. She talks about a lot of the struggles she faced growing up queer in a small town with no real safe space or community for her to express this part of her identity. It is because of this, and because the band knows that many of their fans are a part of the LGBTQ+ community, that the band wants their music and fans and community to be one where people can feel safe to share these parts of their identity and be comfortable in their expression. Emilee Petersmark has also spoken about the trauma that comes with adoption. She is an Asian American woman that was adopted as a child by a white couple and she talks about trying to understand the complexities that come with that experience as an adult. It is something that she says that she is still working to understand, having recently realized that it was something that shaped her life, herself, and her relationships. 

The Crane Wives addresses various issues both directly and indirectly. Gender is an issue they more directly address with both of their front people being women. Their song “Steady, Steady” portrays what people like to call “feminine rage” as they tell the story of a woman ready to escape a cycle. The lyrics read, “I’m swimming in the dress like a child in her mother’s clothes / This ring around my finger’s like a chain around my throat / Are you so sure you tamed me?”.  Race is portrayed more indirectly in their music than gender is, but it is still present. The song “The Hand That Feeds” is one of my favorite songs by them and I feel that it addresses a lot of the anger especially with the current political climate. The lines that stand out to me the most are “My papa taught me how to howl / How to bear my teeth and growl / He taught me that the hand that feeds / Deserves to be bitten when it beats / He taught me how to break my chains”. Class is one that The Crane Wives addresses both directly and indirectly. For instance, the previous song is also representative of class differences, however, another is “Mad Dog” that reminds me of the kind of capitalist machine we seem to be stuck in with the way they sing “Stuck on the tracks, losing my way home / Keep looking for the end of the tunnel / Never seems to get any closer / Who’s gonna keep the lights on? / Who’s gonna make it rain? / Calling out to an echo and just hoping for a different refrain”.  Many of The Crane Wives’s songs tell stories and amongst them are stories on sexuality, and their are direct stories on lesbian relationships. “October” is one such song that tells of a toxic relationship as she sings “I know you’re the daughter of a lonely man / So let my hope grow cold and atrophy / ‘Cause there is no more room in your heart for me / Oh my love, oh my love”. When it comes to politics, I would argue that it is indirectly in every song they write as a band with no label whose sound falls into indie, folk, and rock, but one that directly addresses it is “Take Me to War” that speaks of standing up against oppression. Their lyrics read “They will consume your sweet resistance / And they’ll carry your heart in their teeth / But I am always feeding them / The ugliest parts of me / All of the words I’ve swallowed / All of the sharp things I’ve kept in my mouth”. On a similar note, many of The Crane Wives’s songs portray violence because a lot of their music embodies a type or form of rage regardless of if the song sounds happy or sad, or is fast or slow. “Pretty Little Things”, however, is my favorite song of theirs that shows such a violence because it speaks of a violence that comes with a girl fighting for herself as seen in the lyrics “I know a trick to make a man’s colors show / If he sees something he wants, tell him no / Maybe you’re right, and maybe I have been used up / By another man’s hungry hands / And maybe you’re right, and maybe I have been ruined / By another man after him / But maybe I’m the one who’s right / Maybe I will prove why”.

[g-poetry379]

Week 3: True Symbols

moon

hand

howl

teeth

graves

home

ribs

organs

garden

prayer

name

room

[g-poetry379]

Week 3: Part II of Poetic Reenactment of Morgan Parker's There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce

after Morgan Parker's Book of Revelations

Book of Revelations

Grasp my hand, ungloved: it is mine To consume the warmth of, let me

Create a space Provide me something I can claim, choose for me

Do you think I could be a bird Is it okay for me to love

A hallucination says I’m afraid you chose this, at a hundred thresholds I pressed on

He says Everybody else moved on & I can’t pull a safety net on others now

He says change unwilling commands no people

[g-poetry379]

Week 3: Part I of Poetic Reenactment of Morgan Parker's There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce

The poem I have chosen to analyze is The Book of Revelation. The title references the final book in the New Testament that speaks of the Apocalypse, or the End, making me expect religious allusions and bringing the idea of white Christianity to the forefront of my mind. This also made me wonder if Morgan Parker’s reasoning for having the poem be twelve lines long was to represent the twelve apostles. In addition to this, even before reading the poem, the title alone implies the application of the reflexive mode due to the arguments that surround religion and the real. While keeping all this in mind, I read the first line, “Kiss the years, their filth: it’s my turn”. The use of “their” and “my” creates an immediate divide, separating the narrator from those that consider them filth, which the title indicates could be white Christianity. The words “it’s my turn” is given its own space, being sandwiched by a colon and a line break, turning it from the beginning of a larger statement to an independent thought. The independence of this phrase also indicates a transference of power between the “their” and the narrator, further pushing the idea that the “their” is meant to represent white Christianity and Christians who have historically held power in America.

The line break after “turn” also changes the subject of the next line, “To dress up forlorn in gold, fib”. If this line is read as a continuation of “it’s my turn”, then it is the narrator that is dressing up in gold, however, the line break changes the subject to the “their” from the previous line. They are the ones to dress up forlornly in gold, however, because of the line break after “fib” the reader can understand that the sadness that the “their” feels is a lie. This separation of “fib” and the line that follows works with “To dress up forlorn in gold” to emphasize the false pretenses of the “their” in question.

We then jump to a new stanza that reads, “Through rotting teeth / I’m looking regal, constantly exploding”. “Through rotting teeth” reminds the reader of the position that the narrator is in compared to the “their”, a callback to this divide that exists. However, it is followed by “I’m looking regal, constantly exploding”. When placed in combination with the previous line, the stanza can be interpreted as the narrator saying that despite the position they are in, despite the role or group the “their” places the narrator in, she is regal and great and will not disappear. The use of the word “regal” is also important especially when placed beside “rotting teeth” and “fib” when in conversation with the “their” because “regal” presents a dignified image that is not commonly placed beside “rotting teeth” and places the narrator above the “their” on a hierarchy because compared to their false image of gold, the narrator is “regal”.

Parker begins the next stanza with “Do you think I could be a witch” which brings the reader back to America’s history, particularly the Salem witch trials where women, particularly POC women, were persecuted under accusations of witchcraft. This also acts as a reference to the title because the Salem witch trials were also perceived as a time in which a hypothetical End was near. It also calls to the group hierarchy from earlier in the poem as it reminds the reader of this divide. The next line “Can shine be caught like a fever” is a metaphorical question with the narrator asking the “their” if she can catch their shine, their bright light. “Shine” is a word with a positive connotation and can be interpreted in this line as the qualities that give the “their” power, however, the narrator calls it a “fever”, showing that despite this shine being insinuated to be something desirable by the general public, it is unwanted here and rather, it is something to avoid catching.

The following stanza reads, “My therapist says something / In my core is a dark and the surface of my planet too”. Starting this stanza with an introduction to the narrator’s therapist creates a shift in the poem, making it so that everything written before this line was being told to the therapist instead of the reader. This also adds another layer to “shine” in the previous line because of the common trope of using light and darkness to talk about mental health. The next line furthers this idea as the narrator’s therapist tells her that “something / in my core is a dark and the surface of my planet too” implying that there is a darkness in the narrator’s mentality that takes over her being, her life, pointing towards struggles with mental health, but the other meaning of “shine” also makes “dark” become a descriptor for the narrator’s side of the divide.

Parker follows this stanza with “She says Many creative people / & I can’t see a beautiful day if I tried”. The “She” is the therapist from the previous stanza, with the italics representing what she is saying in contrast to the rest of the poem which is the narrator’s words. She says “Many creative people” which, when read in combination with the previous line, opens the poem up to its readers, generalizing struggles with mental health saying that it is something many people experience. The next line could have been italicized as well, working as a continuation of what the therapist is telling the narrator, however, the line break and lack of italics turns it into a statement made by the narrator. “& I can’t see a beautiful day if I tried” turns from a general overarching assumption made by the therapist, to a concrete statement that the narrator is currently experiencing as a result of their poor mental health. The phrase “a beautiful day” is also often used in the phrase of it’ll be a beautiful day when, a hopeful variant of the phrase it’ll be a cold day in hell when, and it gives “a beautiful day” an impossibility, as if the narrator is saying even if she wanted to, even if her mental health was in a better place, she would still not be able to see a beautiful day, a day in which that power divide won’t be there.

The poem ends with the lines, “She says peace is something / people tell themselves”. The line break in this stanza stands out as it adds a second meaning to the therapist’s words. “She says peace is something” reads as if the therapist is trying to placate the narrator, saying that at least we have peace. “People tell themselves” is the narrator’s response, saying that peace is just something that people tell themselves, something that people try to convince themselves of to ignore the current situation. The line break makes this exchange a call and response when without it the statement would read as the therapist being more cynical in this situation as well, saying that people tell themselves of peace to try and forget what the narrator is pointing out in this poem. Overall, the poem left me feeling quiet or introspective, as I took in what the poem seems to be saying about her mental health, the state of our world, and how people deal with it all.

[g-poetry379]

Week 3: Research for Poetic Reenactment

The band was founded in Michigan

Their song Arcturus Beaming was inspired by "a convergence of a long period of survival mode, and the coming out of that into more of a hopeful era." They say it's about coping with that overlap, the grief of losing something, but also the hope of a new future.

Emilee and Ben have a solo record that they recorded during peak covid as a way of exploring Emilee’s solo music, but it has yet to be released, feeling like it was never the right time as their focus was always on the band

The band has a discord server for fans that has become a safety net of sorts for these fans to communicate about safety, alienation, and "how do I do this" thoughts surrounding concerts

Emilee has made statements about growing up queer and not having had safe spaces or a safe community as a kid. She says it feels like a big responsibility, but also important work, to be able to provide that for her fans

The band explicitly states that songwriting for them was cathartic and that they’re not love songs, but identity songs

They started by playing at bars/breweries, playing what other people wanted to the point that they call it a miracle that they didn't succumb to mainstream demands

They are not signed to any label, claiming that they wanted to just write the songs they felt they had to emotionally instead of changing who they were to be what the mainstream demands

[g-poetry379]

Week 2: Writing Reflection

The Crane Wives feel like a metaphor for many different things. The Crane Wives is a daughter. Their music feels like a daughter going through the different steps in their life, grappling with everything thrown their way, fighting to come out on top. The Crane Wives is a person aware of the metaphors she makes, aware of the second hand sentiments that slot themselves between the metaphors he speaks. They are a person leaning on metaphors. But I feel like the best way to describe it is that The Crane Wives is devotion. Devotion, not in the sense that I am devoted to them or that they are devoted, but devotion in the sense that their music embodies someone screaming "mine." Not mine like a pen is mine or a cup is mine, but mine like a friend is mine, mine like a city is mine. The Crane Wives represent a "mine" not like possession but devotion. It reminds me of my possessions and devotions, it makes me become aware of this divide. They make me look close at what is mine and ask myself, what am I devoted to? Should I be devoted to it? What deserves my devotion?

[g-poetry379]

Week 2: My Ethics Parameters

I will completely abandon them.

I will utilize The Crane Wives and their music selfishly, use it as a vehicle for my own purposes.

I will keep in mind the history of the prevalence of their genres, folk and rock.

If I copy, I copy, if I reference, I reference, I will use anything and everything.

I don't need permission.

I will be comfortable in the discomfort/uncomfortability of this usage.

I will be selfish.