---
and disgusted the boy who resolved he
would not reassure the world he felt
love until he understood love
Resolve that too soon crumbled when he found
within his chest
something intolerable for which the word
because no other word was right
must be love
must be love
Love craved and despised and necessary
the Great American Songbook said explained our fate
my bereft grandmother bereft
father bereft mother their wild regret
How those now dead used love to explain
wild regret
---
Frank Bidart is known for his extraordinary ability to 'fasten the voice to the page', most noticeably in dramatic monologues that unspool from the minds of people often in a state of torment - Vaslav Nijinsky, Ellen West, Herbert White. What's so interesting in 'Valentine' is how Bidart knuckles into the difficulty that 'the voice' finds in expressing itself through language. The boy's inability to satisfactorily fasten his hopes and desires to language is really devastating - he's a man grown cynical because of the way the word love has been (ab)used in the world, leaving him cut off from private access all it signifies.
Bidart's a poet who also finds the act of expression difficult. His poems gestate over a number years while he waits for the right words to fall into place, so there's a neat metaphor playing out here about that artistic process too. I love how the poet is structuring what's otherwise free verse into two line stanzas, like it's his way of keeping some control over the twisting and turning, unhinged voice.
There's a great interview with Michael Silverblatt here, where you can listen his awesome recital of this poem at right on the eight minute mark.
No comments:
Post a Comment