Stew's commentary Part 4 (Parts XIII - XV)
Part XIII - Anna, Adjacent
I love the narrator’s voice of this one. The tone is honest with an underlying aspect of pain and or sorrow. I can’t necessarily point to how that is achieved, exactly. That I trust the narrator’s honesty, and gather the emotion he’s putting out without melodrama makes this a gentle narration. Only that the word choice, particularly in the first stanza sets emotional pace of this piece. Sadness and longing are so very human for our animal. It is similar in tone to the first 2 or 3 parts of this whole poem. That familiar voice is another thread pulling the reader through this work. That each poem can be distinct, yet the voice stays constant is very skillful. They belong together. And even as each piece has a different meter to underline its words, the narrator is constant (always in Jacob’s POV, even when he puts on voices for others (See: The Interview, Placed, and The Virtues of Work for other examples of voice changing but narrator staying constant).
Also, as a whole, I felt that Anna, Adjacent was another transitional poem. Perhaps it is the evolution, even in title, that Jacob is changing. The word Adjacent in the title is significant, too. Because it isn’t only proximity/distance/place but emotional too, and very self-aware, which perhaps Jacob hasn’t always been.
He was kept away
from her by day our meter is set up with the away/day rhyme
by dirt
by deed
and distance the alliteration here is important. It links the three words. Dirt – one of our earlier threads is back with this one. Deed – I like this word choice. It is by action and/or purpose. And Distance – physical separation. I also like the repeat of "by"
between house
and field– illustrating the distance or rather enforcing it
.....where his mind lay fallow “fallow” is a wonderful reinforcement as well, for one of the major themes in the whole work.
.....and his heart unhealed. His broken heart remains a constant, and perhaps this vulnerable, tender part of Jacob is what makes this poem so significant to the whole.
But by night
in the light - night and light call back the rhyme/meter set out in the first stanza. The tone (voice) can’t carry itself. It needs bones. The strong meter makes the bones. The rhyme punctuates natural music of the words.
that bathed the preacher
in his babbling madness - bathed and babbled - not only clever alliteration, but the words are elemental - water. We’ve seen William use water through this in other places. See part V.
a secret language
of glances danced - the rhyme followed by the alliteration of flickering and fugue gives this stanza momentum – the rhyme alliteration tactic of stanza one finds us again, and binds the whole.
between them in
the flickering fugue
of prayer and despair. I love that these poems aren’t “vignettes”, but rather whole chapters of a big story. This bit tells us what is coming: First with babbling madness, then “flickering fugue”. We know the preacher is ill without being told outright.
They fell into each other's arms
before they ever touched. That this last two lines stands alone, and that a closeness exists without words has told us exactly what we need. Jacob has an ally. Anna and Jacob are adjoined, have something in common. That’s never happened to Jacob before. He has always been just Jacob, fighting just Jacob’s battles (internal and external ones). Besides that significance for him, the words are really beautiful. This is tender, delicate, and intimate without physical intimacy. And Jacob’s focus moves from only self and gods and ghosts, but to another person. Anna makes Jacob more human than maybe he has ever been.
Part XIV - With Winter Come The Grippe
I’m afraid I’m going to get this one way wrong.
Two seasons hence,
from the bed beneath
the load-bearing beam - lovely use of so many Bs. And religion is back. Load-bearing beam surely sounds like a crucifix to me. (Maybe I am projecting that, and am overstepping again. I’ve mentioned before, the religion bits are sometimes difficult. Hopefully I got a lucky guess). It’s almost as though the alliteration forces the reader to pay attention to the words more closely. In this case, I think it’s a good lesson to other poets to draw attention to the important parts, signal significance, with an appropriate poetic device. It isn’t just about the words anymore. It’s their placement that is relevant. They are greater than the sum of their parts when they are combined in particularly poetic ways.
the preacher cried
like Christ: this nudges that crucifix idea more fully, for me. As well as “I thirst”.
I thirst!
It was Anna
who tended him
in the throes
of delirium,
when imaginal
demons swooped
like buzzards
at his fevered brow. Demons swooping like buzzards is again a Christ/man thing, which we’ve seen from the preacher all along. And I like that he is tormented. (which is probably more a commentary on myself than the poet). The visual aspect of this is still holding religion in focus, and when considering the Jacob POV of the narration, it makes perfect sense. We already know Jacob’s got a father/god/preacher complex. (though I’m not sure complex is the right word, to Jacob these are all manifestations of the same thing.)
She sang him to sleep;
he called her an angel. I think the preacher would have been relieved by the sight of an angel in all the swooping buzzard madness he is facing,
Anna politely disagreed.– That Anna denies him that comfort of an angel is not as self-deprecating as it is vindictive.
There is a bigger story for Anna, and this sets up the anticipation for me, that she is significant and we will learn more. For a short poem, this is moves the story into a new Act.
Part XV - Whispered Through a Cracked Oak Door
Run with me, Jacob!
Let us be swallowed
by shadows, entangled
in darkness to writhe - and these words set us up that she wants freedom, but being swallowed, entangled and writhing are hardly pleasant. She is dangerous, and she is taking him to a dangerous place.
under skies that brandish
the moon like a scythe. And Scythe – while a fantastic rhyme for writhe, is also dangerous. Anna’s proposition is a bit warped.
For such a short poem, it is very powerful. Asking him to run with her, but not toward a freedom, toward a tangled, danger. This recalls Part IV, which was also short, and featured being swallowed by strangling poisonous vines. The stanza breaks lend themselves to the words. The line breaks offer the pauses, the form is pushing the significant words to the forefront. In a piece this short, it is crucial, I think. The words have to carry a lot of weight when there are so few of them. The form seems to have balanced their load quite well.