As I said last class, upon my first read of Limón’s “Day of Song, Day of Silence,” I thought mostly of a similar poem, Katherine Larson’s “Statuary.” Not only were the contents of the poem similar, both about some large, exotic bird, but both also had a similar cadence. This is true also of the poems we read for today. The first poem, “Adaptation,” reminds me of a particular few lines in Larson’s poem “Love at Thirty-Two Degrees.”
The astronomer gazes out
one eye at a time
to a sky that expands
even as it falls apart
like a paper boat dissolving in bilge. (33-37)
I am reminded of this poem mostly because Limón uses similar imagery. She writes:
Nights when the moon
was wide like the great eye of a universal
beast coming close for a kill… (4-6)
I also found it interesting that in the second poem from today’s reading, there was less abstraction. The poem seemed more narrative than the previous one or the poems we spent time a few weeks ago discussing: “Bellow,” “The Noisiness of Sleep,” and “Drift.” I wonder, were there any poems you felt particularly drawn to for their abstract, or narrative qualities? Why might Limón have chosen “The Conditional” to be the last poem of her collection? I thought it might also be helpful if we each took a few minutes to discuss the poems we were most drawn to.
I wondered, before reading this collection, if race might figure prominently in it. The answer is no, concepts of race don’t appear often in her collection, but there is mention of Limón’s Mexican heritage in the poem “Prickly Pear & Fisticuffs.” I mention this only because it’s something I struggle with in my own work– writing about the thing that most defines who you are. Do you feel this poem is successful?