GutCult is an online journal featuring poetry, essays, and poetry book reviews. This poem by Graham Foust is in Issue 6:Just a Voice
I could not be famous
to this place.
Pale with light,
I think here—
one eye small,
the other swollen—
and I look: You’re always
walking. Your shadow
is a sky.
You are why
I say entire
life, entire world.
Graham Foust
I'm captivated by the narrator's relationship to place in this poem. S/he feels alone and unrecognized--"I could not be famous / to this place." The narrator observes with very strained vision--one eye is"small," the other is "swollen"--and states, "you're always / walking." Who is this "you"? Could it be another reference to place, this place whose "shadow / is a sky?" The narrator feels insignificant in this world s/he describes, and unable to properly describe it (the injured eyesight). Even the "shadow" of this place "is a sky." This is how the narrator conceives the contrast between the "entirety" of his/her life--small and wounded--with the entirety of the world--big, light-filled, and indifferent.
8 comments:
I could relate to this poem; there is a strong connection to my life. Being famous, on the contrary, is also being unknown, losing oneself from expectations and pressures to to act what others expect a person to act or do.
You're right, Danny. Being "not famous" may not feel alienating; it may in fact feel safe and relieving.
I keep coming back to the "to" in the first stanza: "I could not be famous / to this place." The use of the preposition "to" is very purposeful. The narrator could say "in" this place, but the use of "to" objectifies place; it distances it from the narrator and makes it an other, like another character. Thus, s/he refers to place as "you" later in the poem.
I agree with you about the "to."
Maybe it's just because of the previous eclipse poem, but I keep wondering about "one eye small, the other swollen" in reference to sun and moon... or something. The perspective on place is not locked in for this one.
... I should have said in reference to moon and sun.
MB:
Yes. I took "swollen" to mean an eye that was closed over by a bruise; but it could mean an eye that is bigger than normal. So we could have a contrasting perspecive of one limited, one too big. Either way, it does complicate the sense of perspective in this poem.
I really enjoyed this one.I also agree with you on the "to", it creates a fluidity between person and place, the idea that we dont exist in, but with our surroundings, it feels very organic. I was also captivated by "Your shadow is a sky", i havent figured that out yet and im not sure i want to. This ones gona stick with me i think.
Post a Comment