February, 2025

February, and, I wonder, Has this happened to you? You are reading…something, when for no real reason you look away to cast an eye on, say, the cat, a skein of ice on the windowpane, that vase of hyacinths. And presto! the images merge, transmogrify – whether nearly logically (perhaps there is a cat among your pages, too), or rather less so, in a manner one might call poetical, or at least a version of poetry’s alchemical spirit.  Anyway, such was the case this evening for me, as I glanced up from my book at an image on my computer screen. Specifically, at that moment, a passage from Barthes’ The Pleasure of the Text, to this month’s cover art, Helene Schjerfbeckm’s Self-Portrait.  I.e., the former;

Text of pleasure: the text that contents, fills, grants
euphona; the text that comes from culture and does not
break with it, is linked to a comfortable practice of reading.

Text of bliss: the text that imposes a state of loss, the text
that discomforts (perhaps to the point of a certain
boredom), unsettles the reader’s historical, cultural, psy-
chological assumptions, the consistency of his tastes…

and to refresh your memory, the latter —

Can I say that, in that moment, the “text” of the painting seemed to illustrate, to embody even, exactly a blurring or conflation of Barthes’ categories? Look again at that face. At once comfortable, even reassuring, representing no rupture with the culture or the way of seeing which produced it, no? And yet a countenance that simultaneously offers its opposite effect, one that unsettles the viewer, performing for him or her what could be a kind of dread or anxiety — or, yes, boredom —  via its indeterminacy: her gaze, her age.

And so I was smitten. Sure that I had stumbled across, if not a profound truth, an epiphany of sorts, about the universal nature of poetic expression,  a vision – though as all visions must, here – and gone.

Anyway. Such were my imaginings

But let’s turn now to Plume contributor Lexi Pelle’s exegesis of fellow Plume contributor Plume Dorianne Laux’s poem below.

I Watch My Neighbor Watch Porn Movies through The Kitchen Window
while I wash the dishes, the back of his head propped
along the sofa’s curved and tufted rim, his hand
caressing a glass of black wine.  I can make out the shapes
of the woman: blurred breasts, flash of thigh, as I scrape
grease into a coffee can, wipe the pan with a paper towel.
He’s married with a new baby, the light upstairs dimming
each time she rocks, probably cooing and fawning
as a mother does, while her husband stares at the screen
and takes a drink, looking up at the ceiling every once
in a while, his gaze almost wistful, as if listening
for angels, before lowering his head and going back
to his work.  What are the limits of marriage? The plot
is hilarious: an elegant office, the woman in a judicial robe
holding a gavel, the man cowering in a dog collar waiting
for the fist of justice to fall, or maybe she’s quoting
the bible: collect ye not vessels of wine but crates of tears.
When the light upstairs goes off and his wife appears,
he slides over so she can sit down, puts his arm around her,
rests his head on her shoulder, and I go on watching, washing
bowls and spoons, placing each one gently, quietly in the rack.

On Image, Porn, and Real Looking

She’s a “real looker,” my Nana used to say of whatever starlet was being introduced from the feet up on her kitchen TV. I love the phrase, “a real looker,” not in the way my Nana used it, of course, but as a poetic ideology. A real looker is someone who honors the material imagination, who understands our deep craving to turn toward the sensuous, objective world. Laux’s poem, needless to say, is a real looker. It is a poem, not only about observing, but about observing an observer.

The poem’s title and subject matter are grounded with mundanity and humor. The speaker has unintentionally been exposed to a man watching porn. Poems that move in this way: from humor to meaning, pick a high diving board; the leap between subject and substance is great, but if they are able to pull it off, the result is so satisfying.

The first sentence of the poem is long; it spans four lines if you include the title. The language is conversational with a few carefully chosen details. The pillow is “curved and tufted”; the hand is “caressing” a glass. I love this opening because it not only acknowledges the eroticism of the porn but the inherent eroticism of taking any image seriously. Laux knows how essential image is for the reader to penetrate a narrative. Laux then enjambs on the phrase “I can make out the shapes,” a simultaneously plain and profound insight that can apply to the limitations of any looker. Laux goes on, with brilliant symmetry, to present two overtly sexual images alongside two mundane ones: breast, thighs, coffee grease, and pan. This symmetry becomes complicated when the reader learns, “He’s married with a new baby.” The man is watching porn and the mother of his child is rocking their baby. Laux presents a moment of gender disparity without being heavy-handed about it. By not asserting the speaker’s opinions into this moment, the reader is plunged more deeply into their own experience.

“The light upstairs dimming”—what a simple and stunning enjamb and image. This is the point in the poem where the light of knowing is the most dim. The reader and the speaker don’t know what they are seeing: a negligent husband? A normal, exhausted parent trying to reconnect with himself? The light upstairs may also refer to a God or the light of our compassion, and how complexity far too often makes our understanding dim. It’s the infinite possibilities that make this statement so full.

My favorite aspect of poetry is figurative language. I love the surprising bridge the figurative builds between things. The “like” or “as” of a well-crafted simile have always felt to me like the tree limbs of the ineffable. But why does some figurative language strengthen a poem and some figurative language weaken it? The poet Marie Howe said, “to resist metaphor is very difficult because you have to actually endure the thing itself” she went on to say that good metaphor “makes things more there.” When Laux writes, “her husband stares at the screen / and takes a drink, looking up at the ceiling every once / in a while, his gaze almost wistful, as if listening / for angels,” she is situating the reader into the “thereness” of this moment. All of Laux’s images prior to this moment are so precise and resonant that they did not require figurative language, but this figurative leap is an invitation to abandon our previous way of looking. We must listen to the angels, or to a voice beyond our own. The reader has been purely a looker up until this moment, but now Laux is inviting us to look at our looking.

The angels cast this man’s desire and choices in the echelon of the totally human. That same line ends with “before lowering his head and going back / to his work.” Is this man’s work the work of the body? The work of the self? The work of moving toward and away from selflessness?

“What are the limits of marriage? The plot / is hilarious.” Laux deftly moves us from the spiritual back to the domestic. She asks a question about the limits of marriage and then describes the plot of the porn video, which includes a judge and a person “waiting / for the fist of justice to fall.” What a stunning leap! Who is the reader in this scenario? Do we mistakenly believe ourselves to be the judge or the person in need of the fist of justice? The Bible verse Laux goes on to quote is applicable to both marriage and poetry (situating this poem, in my view, as an Ars Poetica): “collect ye not vessels of wine but crates of tears.” Is that not the work of a poem, to convince the reader to lay down our vessels of comfort for a crate of truth? The poem does not end with an answer to the limits of marriage or with any contrived insight; it ends with an image of tenderness between the couple, complicating once more any judgment the reader might be tempted to make about them. Our gaze is rinsed clean of conclusion with the line “I go on watching, washing,” as the speaker sets spoons quietly in the rack. I adore the quietness at the end of this poem. Perhaps to be a real looker, Laux is saying we need to tend to that silence, to the fullness of a deeper, more sensuous unknowing.

An Ars Poetica, I, too, am convinced. Thank you, Lexi. Marvelous.

Let’s see, anything else?

Ah, yes. Before I take my leave, thanks as well, to all of you who have submitted poems to Plume. I know: the reading period was brief – 15 -30 November, but…many, many submissions, and the quality of work: astounding. We read slowly, carefully; so, I am afraid it will be just a little longer. We have accepted some poems and are now below 50 remaining to decide upon.

Finally, as usual, some recent/present/forthcoming titles from Plume contributors:

Wayne Miller                            THE END OF CHILDHOOD
Steven Ratiner                         Grief’s Apology
Richard Blanco                         HOMELAND OF MY BODY
Ange Mlinko                             FOXGLOVEWISE
Elaine Equi.                              Out of the Blank

That’s it for now, I think

As always – I do hope you enjoy the issue!

Daniel Lawless
Editor, Plume