[Glenn Wright]

Version 2

Packing Up

When they come to pack up my things,
they will notice the disorder, careless cleaning,
dust in the corners, books in piles sprouting papers,
clothes that must be laundered before they can be given away.
Is my busy messiness a refusal to accept the cutting of my thread?
They’ll see the letters, cards, photos I saved to cement myself to life like a barnacle.
Maybe they’ll find themselves in a picture with me,
and feel the rush of recollections, like bubbles,
and a sadness, like the fear of drowning,
that will make them hold their breath.

When I packed up my mother’s things,
I was surprised to see she had put everything in order,
clothing clean and folded, papers filed, the bill for her burial marked paid.
She had gotten rather confused at the end. Had someone come to help her?
I don’t think so. She had done it all herself. A gift to me.
She knew I’d be a mess. I’m sure she believed that she
was setting a good example, trying to teach me
the rightness of acceptance, of letting go.
———————————
Edits:
S1L4: clothes that will have to be laundered before they can be given away. > clothes that must be laundered before they can be given away.
S1L5: Is my busy messiness a refusal to accept the cutting of my life’s thread? > Is my busy messiness a refusal to accept the cutting of my thread?


Version 1

Packing Up

When I die, and they come
to pack up my things,
they will notice the disorder,
careless cleaning, dust in the corners,
books in piles sprouting papers,
clothes that will have to be laundered
before they can be given away.
I would be embarrassed if I were still around
to feel shame. But look how busy I was!
My messiness might seem to be a refusal
to accept the cutting of my life’s thread.

They’ll find my saved letters, cards, photos.
Maybe they’ll find themselves
in a picture with me, and remember
that fleeting, captured moment,
plunge into the pool of memories,
feel the rush of recollections,
like bubbles, and a sadness,
like the fear of drowning
that will make them hold their breath.
Maybe they will sit down, exhale,
and try to feel me there with them.

When I packed up my mother’s things,
I was surprised to see
that she had put everything in order,
clothing clean and folded, papers filed.
She had gotten rather confused at the end,
so I had expected a bit of chaos.
Had someone come to help her?
I didn’t think so. She had done it all herself.
A gift to me. She knew I’d be a mess.
She thought, I’m sure, she was throwing me a lifeline,
trying to teach me the rightness of acceptance.

[Carl Copeland]

Hi, Glenn. I really have no idea what I’m doing when I try to critique non-met, but my impression is that this could be tightened up some.

S1: I think I’d drop “I die, and” and let readers figure that out as they go along. “To feel shame” seems redundant, and the last two lines are a bit long-winded: would you consider a one-line question instead, e.g., “Was my messiness [or busyness] a refusal to accept?”

S2: L5 and L6 are saying almost the same thing, and I wonder if the anticlimactic last two lines are needed. BTW, if “like bubbles” is set off by commas, I suppose “like the fear of drowning” should as well (i.e., add a comma after “drowning”).

S3: “So I had expected a bit of chaos” is another thing you could let readers figure out for themselves. I’d put “didn’t” in the present tense: what’s important is what you think about it as you’re writing. “She knew I’d be a mess” is great, but “the rightness of” is unnecessary.

As I say, this comes from someone who doesn’t know which way is up in non-met, so I hope others will shine some light. I like the story and the lesson—one I’ve been trying to learn for ages. Every time it’s repeated to me, I move another inch in that direction. Now I have to get back to packing up my own piles of books and papers as I prepare to move again.

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Carl—

Your advice, as always, is clearly focused and well-considered. I took most of it in the re-write, as you can see. The one suggestion I did not use was to get rid of “rightness” in the last line.
I kept it for two reasons. First, I wanted to suggest that there had been an argument between my mother and me about my messiness and her compulsive neatness. Second, I was making a pun on my name.

I wanted to suggest two opposite views of death: mine and my mother’s. I decided that re-structuring the poem into two stanzas served this purpose better. My view is close to Dylan Thomas’s view in “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.” Maybe translating all those Horace odes got me thinking about this life and the afterlife, but I think that this life is worth clinging to, and I plan to go out with at least a little kicking and screaming. I wondered if my messiness, which has always been an item of contention with all the women in my life, was symptomatic of my desire to stay busy as a way of trying to forestall the inevitable.

My mother’s view was more like Emily Dickinson’s view in “Because I Could Not Stop for Death.” She had “put away / [her] labor and her leisure, too” and faced her death with calm, composed acceptance. I wanted gently to reject this view.

Thanks so much for your help! I think your advice for non-met poetry is very helpful and insightful.

Glenn

[John Boddie]

Glenn - Version 2 is a real improvement. Repackaging it as two stanzas was a good decision.

You might want to consider a minor point:

In S1L5, you might think about replacing "life's" with "mortal". S1L6 already uses "life".

It's a fine poem.

JB

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, John—

Thanks for the helpful suggestions. Good catch on the repetition of “life.” I decided to just delete the one in line 5 since the reference to the Fates’ thread [of life] is well enough known not to need explanation. Thanks, too, for the encouragement.

Glenn