[Matt Q]

.
Bordering

The first time she gets lost,
truly lost,
drives into the warren

of streets on the north side of town,
is gone all night,
loses her car,

wanders,
rabbit-in-the-headlights eyes,
through the night’s rain,

tries the doors of houses,
tries the doors of cars,
takes up residence

in a plastic garden chair
in someone’s car port,
claims it

as her home, claims
it is her home,
a border has been crossed,

and though you will become familiar
with the badlands beyond,
that first time

there are headlights shining
in your eyes too,
and you are also shivering,

frozen to a dark road
as a monstrous truck
hurtles towards you,

horns blaring,
out of the depths of the night.
.

----

Changed poem from two sentences to a single sentence: S7L3 changed full stop to em-dash, S8L1 removed capital letter.
S6L2, italicised "is"

[Barbara Lee]

Hello Matt,

I feel like the first part of the poem up to “claims it as home” works better than everything that follows. The first part uses images like a home in a garden chair which makes the reader feel the condition. The last part reads like one of those adverts on TV as an appeal for help for the disenfranchised.

Even in the first part I would exercise a lot of restraint on the modifying phrases in order to distance the poem from a social appeal and ground it in — well the craft of poetry.

An example of perhaps cut some modifiers are here:
drives into the warren

of streets on the north side of town,

— do you need Warren and “North side of town”?

Here also:

wanders,
rabbit-in-the-headlights eyes,
through the night’s rain,

Can she just wander in the night?

With this kind of content, any whiff of sentiment can undercut the poem—the most heartfelt situation I think needs the most restraint and should stay away from common representation.

I have read other work of yours elsewhere I think and this does not read like other efforts. Maybe here the content was taking over?

Anyway good luck. I hope you come back to the woman in the garden chair.

Cheers
Barbara

[Matt Q]

Thanks Barbara,

Good to know who you (also) are, elsewhere!

I'll respond properly when I've got some more crits. But in the meantime, can I just ask what you think the poem is about -- what the situation is as you see it? It would help me to better understand your critique better, I think.

Many thanks,

Matt

[Max Goodman]

I'm drawn to this. I like the way it makes me feel lost along with the characters: waiting, hoping for the first sentence to become a sentence, to make sense, and then ending with a sentence that never does.

If not for the title, the border crossing would not have particularly struck me. And it seems an odd, abstract thing to bring my attention to. It makes me feel that the poem is a puzzle and the title an important clue. I suppose from that that the experiences in the poem stand for something--the onset of dementia is my guess. I'm more strongly engaged by the experience than by interpreting the poem. (The title suggests, disappointingly, that the poem wants me to interpret it.)

FWIW.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Matt—

On my first pass, I thought the woman was homeless and schizophrenic, but after a couple more read-throughs, I noticed that she only very recently and suddenly went from not being lost to being lost, and she owns a car, so she is likely not homeless. I concluded that she had either a bad drug reaction, perhaps having been roofied and raped, or was the victim of a mugging, which explains her desperation in seeking shelter by trying strangers’ doors. Alternatively, she could have had a drug-induced breakdown caused by addiction and overdose.

The shift from she/her to you/your in S7 is rather shocking. It seems at first that the N is addressing the reader, predicting an emotional breakdown, but it is more likely that the N is addressing a third character—perhaps a young person who has engaged in some risky behavior, who has skirted the border—and is using the woman as an object lesson. The “monstrous truck” could be addiction or insanity.

I’m not very confident about my reading of the piece, but it has a haunted, cautionary quality caused by the narrator’s emotional restraint and my ignorance of his relationship to the woman. Why is he following her? Who is the “you?” Does “loses her car” mean that she misplaced it, or that it was impounded when she was arrested for a DUI?

Hope this is useful.

Glenn

[James Midgley]

Hi Matt,

My overall feeling is that there isn't enough to go on here for me. My thought was that maybe 'she' is suffering from dementia or some other kind of disorientation.

There seems to be something important in the narrative turn/switch of sympathies from 'she' to 'you'. But I can't work out what that might be.

Coupled with the title 'Bordering' I think of the possibilities of bordering consciousnesses -- the potential for another's point of view to, all of a sudden, become yours. And perhaps along with that, the idea of the accoutrements of one's life -- possessions, car, home, keys -- to suddenly lose their place, for one to lose one's place among them, the provisionality of all these.

But these are vague intimations -- I feel as if I'm projecting them at present.

On a line level -- the rabbit-in-head-lights feels too worn even though it is doing important set-up work for the perspective shift. Monstrous truck is too close to monster truck for comfort. Phrases like 'truly lost', 'badlands' and 'depths of night' are lacking in substance as I can't work out the poem's overall arc -- they may work better/take on more meaning when that's clearer.

Cheers.

[Richard G]

Hi Matt.

Another one of the Alzheimer's/dementia opinion.
I too wasn't keen on 'north side of town' or indeed 'badlands' (kept on hearing Springsteen after that) but liked 'warren' (leading to rabbit and to the repeat of headlights.) So, do you need line 4?
Parenthetically, 'wanders' felt a little sedate given the line which follows it.
I also heard 'monster truck' and wondered if as something monstrous / hurtles ... might serve? (A bit of useful ambiguity?)

Regards,
RG.

[Julie Steiner]

I'm reading this as a woman's presenting the first undeniable symptom of sudden-onset dementia, and a family member no longer able to remain in denial that something gravely serious is going on with her, which she will need a lot of help navigating, in every sense of that word.

I especially like the grim "And though you will become familiar / with the badlands beyond". Oh, yes indeed.

This hits home with me — no pun intended — because the first undeniable symptom of my dad's dementia was when he started arriving home from work several hours late with no explanation. This was decades before smartphones and GPS, of course. Paper maps in the glove compartment only. When he got fired a few weeks after those late arrivals home started, he finally confessed that those late arrivals had been because he kept getting lost on his drive back home from his job. We don't know if he was also getting lost on his way there. (His firing was due to erratic and belligerent behavior on the job, mostly directed at his boss, who was a woman of color.)

Anyway, yes, people can function pretty well for a long time before they suddenly can't, perhaps seeming up to that point just a bit off, but not seriously so.

[John Boddie]

Matt –

When we become lost, we cease to be “our regular selves” and survival instincts kick in. At the beginning we are humans and by turns we pass over borders, become a lost dog and finally a raccoon crossing the road.

The metaphor is solid and the execution is crisp. It’s very good work.

JB

[Matt Q]

Barbara, Max, Glenn, James, Richard, Julie and JB

Thanks everyone for your thoughts on this poem.

This one turned out to be more obscure than I'd thought. I am writing, as most of you thought, about dementia. And to the N, the woman is a loved one, a family member. And it also seems that for some of you, but not all, the poem doesn't work that well if that's not divined. Collectively, you've given me some clues as to how else the poem can be read and why. I'm still thinking about how best to address this without spelling things out, but I've no revisions yet.

Barbara,

I'm not sure how you're reading this. I wondered if from "disenfranchisement" and "a social appeal" if perhaps you're reading it as about homelessness or immigration (another kind of border crossing), but perhaps you are reading it as I intended. Useful to know, either way, that it reads as overly sentimental, and the second half as just bad poetry. I'd hoped "rabbit-in-the-headlights" and "warren" and the monstrous truck coming out of the night (with implied roadkill) would connect, as a metaphor. It's relevant that it's raining, I think. A warm summer night would not be as impactful to the N.

Max,

I'm pleased you liked it without needing to interpret it. I hadn't intended the title to suggest a puzzle. It's likely not the most inspired title: abstract and mostly just naming something in the poem. Borders are crossed. For the woman and for the N both. And I thought there was a hint of word-play, with "Bordering" also implying "bordering on", maybe something like "teetering on the edge". Still, it's very close to the sort of title I was arguing against in your most recent poem . I'll think on.

Glenn,

Thanks for letting me know how you read this. That's always useful. I was hoping "you" would be read as "one". So, that N is recounting their own experience, but also addressing the reader, and suggesting the more general case. It hadn't occurred to me that "loses her car" would be read as having it taking away from her, so that's useful to know. I could go with "misplaces", I guess, but that seems weaker.

James,

Useful to know it wasn't clear that the switch to the N didn't clue you in that the woman's experience impacted significantly on the N, and why. Re: "truly lost", I'd hoped this added emphasis, and suggested a form of being lost more fundamental than when one is when simply doesn't know the area they find themselves in.

James and Richard.

Oddly, perhaps, I had to google "monster truck". I did recognise what I saw, but didn't associate the name before googling. Clearly a gap in my cultural knowledge! Hmm. I'd say "monster trucks" are only really trucks in the American sense of the word, as in, they're not lorries. I'm definitely thinking of an 18-wheeler, and "lorry" lacks the drama, and the consonance. But I'll think on.

Richard,

"something monstrous" is definitely an option I'll think more about, it doesn't add some ambiguity, though it maybe loses some image (albeit, the monster truck image it suggest to you have isn't the one I wanted!). I think I need L4, even in not specifically "north side", otherwise what "warren" means risks becomes less clear (image loss again), and it's also less clear (maybe) that it's her town, and not some distant unknown place. "wandering" I was hoping applied to her mind as well has movement, though the idea of making the movement better match that of a rabbit is definitely something to consider.

Julie,

Thanks for letting me know this one works for you. I do wonder if the poem's clearer, and more impactful, to those who have been through something like this. Yes to the denial. Even if intellectually you know what's coming, it's easy to tell yourself someone is still coping, still safe. But there's a first time, at least in this poem there is, that what's coming hits you viscerally, becomes incontrovertible.

JB,

I'm really pleased that you like this poem as it is, and the animal motifs. It's had quite a range of critical responses!


Thanks again, everyone.

Matt