Where does the eye go? The eye likes red, or at least is its slave. How much choice do we have? We obey our rods and cones.So I see a strong connection between these two poems. (Yes, "Anecdote of the Jar" has been here before, on Nov. 12, 2009, in case you'd like more discussion of it).
Ukulele Boy is here to offer relief in casy any heavy lifting has occurred.
“What Do Women Want?” by Kim Addonizio : The Poetry Foundation [poem] : Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry.
from Anecdote of the Jar by Wallace Stevens : Poetry Magazine [poem/magazine] : Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry.
YouTube - I'm Yours(ukulele)
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I want the kid playing the ukulele!
ReplyDeleteI want the red dress - but not attitude she brings with it. I want the dress to sway with my steps, to be attractive but not cheap. I want eyes to follow, but not cheap thrills to follow. I want it to make an entrance, and then be my bones, my persona. But not cheap... and I want it to say "I do care about you, but right now I want to have fun in a red dress."
And the jar on the hill in Tennessee? I think I kick it to the next field once. People do like to put jars on hills in Tennessee - as if to catch fire-flies that no one will ever watch.
Brenda, I think you've got your own poem going on those Tennessee fireflies. Intriguing image!
ReplyDeleteSounds like you had a scarring experience with a jar in childhood? :)
Ukulele kid is special, isn't he? Did I post him once before?
I'll wait for others to comment on the red dress and/or the poem.
Regarding the Kim Addonizio --- that's more like it!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm of two minds...like a tree in which there are two blackbirds--or, in this case, one jar and one red dress.
ReplyDeleteThere's a liveliness and humor to the Addonizio piece that are hard to resist. But then again, the joke is an old one, and the enthusiasm, I suspect, deeply insincere. A couple vivid images notwithstanding, there's little here, for me, beyond idle prosaic fantasizing.
More to the point: that line "I want to wear it until someone tears it off me" bothers me. I don't believe her, and I don't think she or anyone else does either. So why say it? Because it's cute--maybe. Or because, like the imagined dress itself, the confrontational tone is a way of asking for more attention than she really wants to receive.
As for Mr. Stevens' jar, I think part of the point is that the jar is so ordinary it doesn't call attention to itself, but paradoxically throws the much bigger yet equally overlooked landscape into stark relief.
I could be wrong, but I thought the red dress was a slap to the guy who dumped her. Right now it means everything to her that he and world see she doesn't care. She doesn't care at all. Watch me not care.
ReplyDeleteAH, that is a good point. I like how 'to the point' you can describe the situation! Your words stab through the clutter.
ReplyDeleteAnd I bet Barbaro has a point - if someone tore her dress off, would she file assault charges? YIKES!
Run from this chick. She is trouble.
I liked his point about the jar.
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