[John Boddie]

For me, the last line seems an afterthought. As such, it diminishes the strength of the preceding strophe. The shift from "she" back to "I" is a minor speed bump.

As for getting published in The New Yorker, it seems that luck plays a significant role. Many pieces I've seen there aren't as good as this one.

JB

[Matt Q]

Hi Cameron,

I also like this one a lot, and echo the praise others have given it. Reading it especially in the light of your other poems on ancestry, I read this is as much about cleaning as (not) "cleaning up"/"whiting out" one's ancestors, hiding/disowning one's ancestors -- and those who did not "clean up" in the sense of not being able to be made respectable or to pass.

I have a few crits/points:

Given the colon, "cockroach, plaster, brick-dust & the dead" reads like a list of the N's ancestors. Also, the list (cockroach, etc) seems to be the referent for "their" in "here are their ashes". I'm not objecting, I like the idea, just wasn't sure if you intended it.

One thing stuck out for me a bit, given the freshness of the rest of the language was the stock metaphor, "primordial soup". I guess soup can suggest cooking, another domestic task, and the soup image may fit in with the poem that way. But if I'm reading the poem right it's more about cleaning than domestic tasks in general, so the soup image seems a little at odds with the poem. A thought, and maybe a bad one, but I guess you could go with "primordial soap", playing off the "primordial soup" phrase, but tying in with the cleaning motif.

& here are the hundred other women
before me who did not clean up:
the thin arms, aborted broom; the startled eyes
confronted by her dustfaced predecessor:

she is caught in a new religion

I get very confused here. We seem to shift midsentence from looking at 100 women to only one woman, without a clear indication that this change has occurred or how.

First two lines are clear enough. 100 female ancestors are here. I have a clear image.

The next two lines, I wondered if they were speaking of the general case -- that what follows the colon applies to all 100 other women that the N now sees. The N sees 100 pairs of thin arms. That's the natural reading, I think, given what precedes. But then "broom" doesn't fit. The N sees only one broom. So having said here are 100 women, it seems the N is only seeing/talking about one of them?

Then we come to, " the startled eyes / confronted by her dustfaced predecessor" but I see nothing in the poem for "her" to refer to. Whose dustfaced predecessor?

But since there is a predecessor here, and I'm back to the idea of a line of 100 women, stretching back in time, each eying the their predecessor.

Then with next line, "she is caught", we're very clearly talking about one woman.

Anyway, I hope I've explained my confusion clearly enough.


best,

Matt

[Jim Moonan]

.
I’ve extended my thinking on this poem… and had a wild thought handed to me seemingly out of the blue: could this simply be a poem to express your displeasure for cleaning? You wouldn’t be the first to abhor the chore. This morning, in what can only be described as a coincidence masquerading as a missing puzzle piece, I came across this bit of information about Emily Dickinson:

“The poet took pleasure in the sweeter culinary arts, baking the family’s bread and cake, but Emily Dickinson wanted nothing to do with cleaning. She complained of her more willing sister to one girlhood friend, “I don’t see much of Vinnie—she’s mostly dusting stairs” (L176). “God keep me from what they call households,” she prayed (L36). Her understanding of the dynamics of women’s work proves more complicated than these youthful tirades. The poem “How many times these low feet staggered” (Fr238) both registers the stultifying effect of housework on women’s lives and criticizes a society that fails to value the work of sweeping cobwebs and washing windows.” (Emily Dickinson and Cooking)


I, for one, enjoy tidying up. Cleaning chores are my favorite form of procrastination. For example, I have a glass-topped dining table that I obsess about keeping clean of smudges and dust that seem to appear out of nowhere. Presently, it gleams and reflects the cherry tree that is in bloom outside my window. At various times throughout the year it provides a seasonal, ghostly reflection of the woods out back. It gives me a deep sense of something I can’t describe that is unlike any other visual I can think of. Reflections of another world on glass, maybe.

To continue with my outlandish interpretations of your poem, it could be that it represents your rage against procrastination. I am a guilty consumer of procrastination. I use it to ponder. I’m getting better at interrupting it and rushing back to the page when something suddenly occurs to me. But in general procrastination robs me more than it rewards me : )

The New Yorker comment was just an off-the-cuff thought. I think I had been leafing through the current issue and the poems in it failed to impress me. Yours did.

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