Audrey Poetker's works break all the
way past the “personal space” kept between people, reaching into
the emotional core and “thought space” of poet herself, allowing
a reader alien to a would-be mother's point of view to see how it
works and to get a sense of how always having such a perspective
forced upon her must feel.
Audrey Poetker takes an approach that
is intended to lend readers her rare insight into the feelings of a
woman desperate for a seemingly impossible conception. Readers
unaccustomed to blatant references to the act of sex and to secondary
sex traits can feel uncomfortable with Poetker's poems, and readers
who are particularly finicky about punctuation might be put off by
the disintegration of it all in the last section of “Symbols of
Fertility” and in the
near-entirety of “Fallen Woman.”
But this is poetry, so the poet is allowed to be a little more
liberal with her use of language and with the personal content of her
pieces. Poetker's prevailing themes are strongly concerned with the
treatment of the body, what benefits one's body ought to be able to
have or give, what others expect of how one uses one's body, and what
functional role one's body ties to one's identity in relation to its
interaction with the natural order. If someone cannot handle the heat
of the sexual imagery inevitable for such a topic, then s/he should
leave the kitchen where Poetker's poems are cooked up. While parts of
her poems touch upon the sexual, they are actually more sorrowful
works than erotic poems. As the blurb about Poetker's poetry on turnstonepress.com clarifies, Poetker is writing about the body, yes, but more specifically about the "body's emptiness."
In
“Symbols of Fertility,”
the point of the poem is to convey the deep emotional sinking Poetker
feels due to her body's failure to cooperate with her desire for
offspring. Since this mourning is directly linked to her attempts at
reproduction, inclusion of some sexual imagery is natural. Managing
to avoid mention of absolutely anything related to sexual
characteristics would be a tricky dance that could all too easily
result in a troublesomely clumsy and confusing communication.
However, if the reader believes that the point of this poem is to be
erotic, then the reader is failing to cross the bridge that the poet
has crafted for our edification. The reader would either neglect to
really read and examine the poem out of trepidation that s/he was
crossing a taboo boundary, or s/he would blindly cross the wrong
border into a land unmapped by the poem, thus becoming unable to
identify the meaningful markers in the textual landscape.
“Fallen
Women” and “My
kingdom is of this world” are
also poems that regard the behavior of people who are driven by
desires. “Fallen Women”
is melancholic in mood, saturated in ambiguity and hinting at a
community's “secret” history, possibly related to promiscuity or
to abuse. The imagery lying within it could be taken as references to
sexual lifestyles or to death. Perhaps both are meant to be be seen
in a reader's interpretation of the poem. The poetic device most obviously functioning as a bridge in this poem is the Point Of View, which is in the Second Person. For a reader like me, who is not a perfect match-up for that which is described in the poem, the declaration that "you" are experiencing the action and emotion of the poem forces the reader to cross over into an alien territory. My mind immediately responds with "No, this not my life history" and "No, I wouldn't do nor feel that." But because the poem insists that I did, I ask myself what someone like me would have to go through to be the person being described in the poem. Thus, I end up feeling a little more like there is common ground for the character in the poem (possibly a younger version of the poet herself) and myself to share.
“My
kingdom is of this world” is
the one poem of the three covered here that has a ray of cheerfulness
in it. This could be a result of the poet's ability in this poem to step outside herself more so than in the other two poems. She seems to have be comfortable with using Biblical allusions in a way that is a turnabout of the original Biblical meaning. This creates a bridge between her old life in a Christian family to her later one as a nominal Christian (A Capella tells that she describes herself as only culturally Mennonite). The very title of the poem is an inversion of what someone familiarized with the Bible expects, which could be a way to get Christians who have no troubles with faith in God to feel some connection with someone who does. Emily Dougherty provides an explanation of "Symbols of Fertility" being the outpouring of a woman who was "deceived to think that if she prayed hard enough, and had strong faith, she would be able to reproduce." Having moved from accepting the religion of others to rejecting it, she needs to find a way to show her perspective in a way people the members of her former in-group can sympathize with. Therefore, she phrases parts of this poem to make the twist or shift of her perspective easy to spot. So the Biblical allusions are a bridge from a past form of life to her current one. This poem is also her construction of a bridge for herself to the lives of others and onwards to life itself. She is able to able to appreciate other couples' joys vicariously, seeing that there is good in the world even if she cannot have all of the goodness herself. There is irony in the fact that the bridge she builds gets her to a mental vantage point that lets her look the things which are not at all far from her home on a farm (those of us who read the "About The Poet" page in A Capella: Mennonite Voices In Poetry know that she lives and presumably writes her poems on a farm) without a grim attitude. She appreciates the more basic wonders in life, such as the produce grown in gardens. Or rather, these are the wonders of life, and in that light the fact that Poetker will take advantage of still moments to gaze at things that grow is indicative that she remains fascinated by the ability to create life. Yet this poem does not display an envious obsession; Poetker gives readers no reason to believe that her "rapture" is not a positive experience for her. Perhaps she wrote this poem as a way to demonstrate that she has matured and moved past the boundary of grief over personal inability to a destination of loving life's conquest as a whole.
Works Cited:
"Making Strange to Yourself." Making Strange to Yourself. Turnstone Press, n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. <http://www.turnstonepress.com/making-strange-to-yourself.html>.
Hostetler, Ann. A Cappella: Mennonite Voices in Poetry. [S.l.]: University of Iowa, 2003. Print.
Dougherty, Emily. "Interpretation - Mennonite Poetry." Interpretation - Mennonite Poetry. Goshen College, n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2013. <http://www.goshen.edu/mennonitepoetry/Poets/Audrey_Poetker/Interpretation>.
Michael: Great job! Your thesis statement was very clear and provided an interesting perspective in terms of the bridge that you saw Poetker trying to establish with her readers. In addition to a clear thesis statement, you also gave very clear descriptions of her poems, blatantly telling your audience what they would be getting into should they pursue Poetker’s works. However, I would suggest that you add more quotes in your summaries in order to defend your argument. Also, I would like to note that your works cited are not visible: It may have to do with your profile theme, but as it is there is a white line where the link should be. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
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