Birthday Wishes (New Title: Belated)

[gwen]

Belated

I picture what it was to be unborn:
enclosed and sleeping, fed and held,
unrivalled, out of sight. You were two.
No one had told you about birth. You pictured, they told us,
that creature unborn, disappeared, out of sight.
A family joke. Here is a picture
of a pink thing in white
and you, in misery, in your yellow shorts
turning to camera with a cry.
Give her back. That was the first joke
they told us both.

Here is a picture of you, later,
sprawled in a chair and reading:
red hairband and dark corduroy
knee drawn to your chest.
You are happy here, uninterrupted.
It is your seventh year.
I am not there. My absence is the gift.

Here is a birthday, your tenth: two small girls
side by side in stiff pink frills. Your face
is set and patient. My arm
stings with the crescent marks of nails.

Thirty years have passed. I keep my collection
of bland white early-twenties cards—love xx and ballpoint hearts
to fill the space around your name. I keep
the photographs, delete
the emails and those last five texts.

Absence is the gift
that’s hardest now to give. You cannot unmake
a self, reverse a birth. My eye, obtrusive lens,
—paparazzi, as you say—will not go out.
Silence isn’t absence. You have to wait it out.

[beeswax]

Hello Gwen.

I didn't get this until I went back and read your last draft. It was clear in your previous draft: your birth unsettled the first born sister. She took it hard, I guess she felt you'd usurp her in some way, and she treated you badly throughout your life -- bullying you.

It's a good story and worthwhile working on. I would have 'got it' had it not been for the first five lines.

I picture what it was to be unborn:
enclosed and sleeping, fed and held,
unrivaled, out of sight. You were two.
No one had told you about birth. You pictured, they told us,
that creature unborn, disappeared, out of sight.
A family joke.



This confused me. It was the pronouns: they, you, I, us. And the word two. My first hypothesis was that you were one of twins, the one who had not survived to full gestation -- speaking from the ether so to speak.

However, if I go straight to the middle of Line 7 the confusion is cleared up. You might consider just cutting the first 5.5 lines. Alternatively they need some work.


Right here below is where the drama begins.

Here is a picture of a pink thing in white Good desc. of a new born.
and you, in misery, in your yellow shorts

Consider losing 'in your' so it would read
and you, in misery and yellow shorts. Or better still
and you, in yellow shorts and misery

As though she is wearing the misery as well as the shorts.

Then you've written the yellow shorts
are turning-- which is absurd. Could it be

You turn to the camera and cry
(g)ive her back! That was the first joke
they told us both.



Here is a picture of you, later,
sprawled in a chair and reading:
red hairband and dark corduroy
knee drawn to your chest.
You are happy here, uninterrupted.
It is your seventh year.
I am not there. My absence is the gift.

Here is a birthday, your tenth: two small girls
side by side in stiff pink frills. Your face
is set and patient. My arm
stings with the crescent marks of nails.

Thirty years have passed. I keep my collection
of bland white early-twenties cards—love xx and ballpoint hearts
to fill the space around your name. I keep
the photographs, delete
the emails and those last five texts.

Absence is the gift
that’s hardest now to give. You cannot unmake
a self, reverse a birth. My eye, obtrusive lens,
—paparazzi, as you say—will not go out.
Silence isn’t absence. You have to wait it out.[/QUOTE]

So in summary I'd recommend you think of losing the first strophe. I've made some specific suggestions for the second strophe. As I read on -- there's nothing that stands out to me that needs correction in terms of syntax. You've told the story. You might want to tighten it up. I find with poetry we often start with more than is necessary and severe or gentle pruning is usually necessary. Think of each word and be ask what it adds to the poem. Could the poem do without it or is there a better word in terms of meaning and/or sound.

I hope this is helpful. It's your poem. I'll be interested in seeing your revision. Thanks for the opportunity to consider your work.

[beeswax]

Hello again Gwen. I just read my critique again and realised I haven't done justice to your revision. I think it is much improved from the first draft. Specifically I like the detail about the crescent nail marks following the description of her face 'set and patient', suggesting a kind of casual cruelty on sister's part. I thought that was well done. I also like the detail -- ' . . . those last five texts' -- suggesting this sequence of texts was the straw that broke little sister's back after a lifetime of bearing up. I found paparazzi a bit jarring. So big sis doesn't like your scrutiny of ?? It kind of complicates the picture late in the game. Your first two sentences and the final two work well I think. For the middle part maybe play with different ways of saying, I ain't going nowhere. Learn to live with it. So many ways. I liked the repeated word 'out' -- ending each of the last two lines. it's a cutting vowel, I mean consonant. And N is cutting someone out of her life -- or perhaps more accurately letting go of her own victimhood.

[gwen]

Many thanks for these super helpful (and charitable!) comments. It’s really useful to hear how confusing the first strophe is, lacking context, and I need to think more about how to tighten up the rest of the poem. I wanted the paparazzi line to play with some of the stuff about pictures/photographs but I see it doesn’t work as it stands and will think again about how to organise the thing.

[Matti McC]

Hi Gwen,

For me, reading this revision, the problem is still the diction. You opt for mystical-sounding terms in many places that may gain you dignity in your mind, thinking of talking to your sister (or thinking of the speaker thinking of talking to her sister), but are a little too stagey and rhetorical, sacrificing clarity and imagist accessibility so the speaker can gain an imagined emotional higher ground over the sister, while looking sagely and sensible, while not provoking further.

That stagey beurocratic obfuscation is a problem because the word choice doesn't quite respect the speaker's emotions, which could be much more vivid and direct.

For instance, instead of 'I picture what it is to be unborn...unrivalled, out of sight,' you could write, 'I picture myself in utero,' then add detail in the same space, 'I picture myself in utero, a bent twig / enclosed, sleeping, away from your gaze. Sister. /
You were two, a face in curls...twisted like question marks," or whatever image comes to mind!

Any clarity problems would melt away and you'd allow the reader/listener access to the speaker's inner mind, but you'd lose something too: the moral impulse to be diplomatic while discussing emotional issues. This is a poem. It isn't a priest's visit or a presidential speech. The emotional truth of the speaker's mind is important for coherency and authenticity, and all it takes is a few too many benedictory phrases like 'Thirty years have passed' or 'you pictured, they told you, that creature unborn,' and the context blurs into a mock Shakespeare, rendering the voice and story near unintelligible without notes.

Of course authenticity isn't always easy. It can be simple to think it means for instance, by default, recreating what you'd actually say to your sister off-poem. If you'd use a thick rhetoric, that goes in the poem. If you'd deploy euphemisms to be gentle, that goes in the poem. And maybe you could justify one or two such phrases, for drama's sake. But add one and you might add twenty, and consider the overall effect. You have the speaker patronise herself and her sister by using a star wars jedi voice (am hoping to make you laugh, not as needless repitition), rather than giving it to you both straight up. At the very least this poem is a breakthrough for the speaker. Have it be that. No punches pulled, at least not at this stage? If you go over the edge completely into calling the sister a harpy with vampire fangs you can rein it in later, but at the minute the beurocracy is overpowering.

Forget wrapping the speaker in a lengthy word blanket. 'My arms sting with the crescent marks of nails' can be reduced for instance to "Nail burns,' then you can continue the image in detail that engages the speaker on an emotional level that reveals her personality in more than a tendency to offer herself and sister a rhetorical shielding. "Your nails burns / dance like doodles on my arms, one bloody where I've tugged a scab, my present to myself" (whatever seems appropriate with the extra space and allows you emotional access).

Clarity for the reader begins with emotional access for the speaker. Don't make him or her an emotional mayor standing guard over the poem with a wagging clipboard in one hand and a pointer in the other, or like Polonious in Hamlet, issuing lengthy pronouncements. Not unless you're fine with the reader, or the sister, not loving that rhetorical surrogate over the speaker's actual emotional reality, which is visible around the edges.

I think this is full of an underlying story that is evocative and useful, really engaging, underneath the staginess. And much of the necessary structure is here, including many clear core structural images. They just don't cohere at the moment. The pronouns in particular don't gain weight because Polonious is speaking. So many yous and yet the speaker is protecting the sister behind that rhetorical wall.

Take the walls down, make space, add more images that are emotionally closer to the speaker, making them emotionally more accessible to the listener learning about her and her sister.

Best,
Matti

[gwen]

Hi Matti,
Thanks for these comments—I think you’re right that tone/diction is an issue and I’ll think more about your suggestions on how to make the poem more emotionally engaging to a reader.
all best,
gwen