Giddiness, gratitude, tears of joy, awe.
Category: essays and commentary
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Nancy K. Pearson's Two Minutes of Light
While idly surfing the web, I came across this poem by Nancy K. Pearson, entitled, To the High School Prom Queen. When I read how the narrator addresses a former prom queen who is now behind bars, I knew I had to read the entire collection.
Pearson’s first book of poetry, Two Minutes of Light, was published by Perugia Press, a company that publishes only one book a year, a first or second collection by a female poet. Those are some slim odds, that one’s book would be picked up by Perugia, which is another reason I decided to order Pearson’s book. I figured she would have to be an excellent poet, if a company would put their whole year’s productivity into the publication of just one book, and had chosen hers.
Pearson explores some tough topics: self-mutilation, drug addiction, accidental death, suicide, and sexual abuse. But she explores the evolution of a person who emerges from pain and darkness, and who is able to bank on the beauty and love she finds in the world. The narrator pulls herself out of hell.
The poems seem to be written in a minor key. The words are simple, punched up with an occasional reference to the South, or to a name-brand regional store. The narrator pays attention to the natural world, which is observed because of, in spite of, or after suffering. If ever there was a book to inspire people to hang on, to embrace life rather than succumbing to despair, Two Minutes of Light is it. But Pearson conveys this message through the narrator’s slow climb out of hell, not by preaching or extolling any particular set of beliefs.
In an interview with Melora B. North from the Provincetown Banner, Pearson says that although the poems in Two Minutes of Light, ” are not autobiographical, they obviously mirror her life in many ways and are based on her not always pleasant observations and experiences.”
Again we have a poet who needs to make a disclaimer about her seemingly confessional poems. I understand Pearson’s need to clarify herself, given the assumptions many people make about poetry. Even if she uses the first person, the poet is reconstructing a past that no longer exists. A poet tries to remain faithful to the feelings, and uses whatever devices are available to her to recreate, to share, to allow the reader a glimpse of a different reality.
Pearson successfully creates a character who survives, and even goes on to thrive, because she feels an attraction to the raw beauty of the world, to the pleasures of living.
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who is speaking?
This post is a continuation of a post I wrote at Read Write Poem about persona poems. Go see!
In many poems, the narrative voice is in the first person singular. I’ve heard writers complain about how they’re tired of writing about themselves, how they don’t want to be self-obsessed, and I’ve also heard readers complain about how so and so is forever writing about herself, is a narcissist with no sense of the world outside.
But are we always writing about ourselves when we use the pronoun I ? As noted in the Poet.org article entitled “Poetic Technique: Dramatic Monologue”, TS Eliot created characters in his poems who spoke about certain ideas and situations the poet wanted to investigate or draw out. In “The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock,” no one would mistake the narrator of Prufrock as the poet himself. In this poem, Eliot is taking on the persona of the modern man, breathing life into him through the character of J. Alfred Prufrock.
When discussing or commenting on the work of others, it’s important to ask, “who is the narrator?” Just because the author is female doesn’t mean the narrator is. One of the privileges of being a poet or an artist or an actor is that we use our imaginations. We explore what it might be like to live under certain conditions. We might be able to find a historic character to investigate, someone who actually lived who exemplifies an idea or an image we want to understand. Or we invent.
And it might be wise to remember that even when we think we’re being honest with ourselves about writing the brutal truth, we still might be harboring certain illusions about ourselves that transfer onto the page. I’ve caught myself holding back when I write for any number of reasons What ends up in the poem is my invented self, the woman I want to be, but maybe not the person I am. We continuously create the persona we admire. Narcissism is a deep, shiny pool, and we all love to gaze into it.
How many of you have had readers confuse the narrator in the poem with you? Have you ever had someone assume you were writing about, say, your own failed marriage, when in fact you were merely exploring what could be, or what might have been?
What about personas in your poems? Have you breathed life into a literary figure from the past, a historic personage, or even a character you made up?
To read more about the idea of persona poems, please visit my column at read write poem, “get the lead out, it’s noting really.”
Balanced On the Edge 