June 9, 2006

After the sex by Salwa C. Jabado

Julie: An enjoyably surreal series of descriptions makes this poem interesting. Though it takes the poet saying

Happily disbelieving
transformations,

for me to get that the images are positive ones. I've got no quarrel with that.

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http://poems.com/elainjoh.htm by Amaud Jamaul Johnson

Julie: I can't claim to be getting all of this. The first section in particular left me befuddled. I knew that it was bad, but precisely who was doing what to whom confused me. The rest of the poem is much less opaque (or I was less stupid by then), and I really loved the varied voices Johnson uses, from the lyricism of 2, to the intense sonic density of 3, to the matter-of-factness of 4. 3 is almost too much, too densely alliterated and thick as hell on the tongue, but that density caused me to slow, to ponder.

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Bird Call, Wave by Laurie Lamon

Julie: Well now, that's pretty, though again I'm not completely confident I'm getting the whole plot, since I came away from it thinking something quite bad had just happened, then a reread told me I was wrong, and a rereread went back to the original.

Better to hear the waves.

The husband moved to the window-side better to hear the waves? Or the wife thinks it would have been better to hear the waves than to have turned toward the window? Both? The ambiguity is a pleasing one.