Hi friends!
I just found out a friend of mine at work is a poet. Not just a poet, a
published poet. Not just a published poet, but one of the "best new
writers" according to some new collection, and so I found a piece of his
from a 2003 edition of POETRY magazine. In the same volume were pieces by
Maxine Kumin, Billy Collins, Ted Kooser, John Kinsella, and Eamon Grennan,
just to name the big shots. For those scoring at home, that’s 3 US poets
laureate and two badass Irish writers, and 5 poets we’ve read in this
forum.
So joining them today is Dan Groves, who sleeps on my old futon. True
story. And in the spirit of my renewed attention to what makes the poem
work, note that this one relies on a lot of basic wordplay, focussing on
how meaning changes depending on whom we’re addressing. The poet here
ostensibly addresses a dog, but also an audience, and some of the cliched
doggy-speak phrases are thus revived. There is also a time-lapse
example of chiasmus, a hard-core old school technique favored by Milton in
his poetry and Seamus Deane in his prose, which basically involves an
"X-ing" or crossing of phrases in some reverse order. Usually it’s a sound
technique, But here, as it happens between the first and last lines, the
sound effect is all but lost, while the reversal of meaning–again
crossing human language and canine commands–renders the skillful wordplay
poignant. I like the overall formal rigidity and faithful meter, and
there’s more to point out, so I’ll let ya’ll chime in before saying
anything else. And NB, I don’t even like dogs! ~mjl
* "destroyed", l.4, should be in italics
A DOG’S LIFE
A stay of execution: one last day,
your day, old Everydog, then, as they say,
or as we say (a new trick to avoid
finalities implicit in _destroyed_),
you have to be put down, or put to sleep
the very dog who, once, would fight to keep
from putting down, despite our shouts, a shoe
until he gnawed it to the sole, and who
would sit up, through our sleepless nights, to bark
away some menace looming in the dark.
Can you pick up the sense of all this talk?
Or do you still just listen for a walk,
or else, the ultimate reward, a car?
My God, tomorrow’s ride . . . Well, here we are,
right now. You stare at me and wag your tail.
I stare back, dog-like, big and dumb. Words fail.
No more commands, ignore my monologue,
go wander off. Good dog. You’re a good dog.
And you could never master, anyway,
the execution, as it were, of Stay.
Monday's Verse 