Silence
The Eskimos had it right
With all their words for snow—
As if one word,
One small combination of letters,
Could describe
That experience
Which bakes its schizophrenic soul
Into so many dishes,
A veritable many-course meal
For those with stomachs large enough to partake
Each different offering,
Savor the flavor
Of each soundless course
Cooked with care for them alone.
Steamed, sautéed,
Grilled and garnished
By different occurrences;
The champagne-bubbly silence of anticipation,
A soufflé baked with precision,
Apple pie-steam and coffee brewing,
The aroma impatiently unbearable;
The crunchy, loud silence of awkwardness,
Carrot bits flying everywhere
Orange and unforgiving,
Spinach stuck between buck teeth;
The hot silence between lovers not yet tasted,
Fajitas sizzling on the grill, their many trimmings
Displayed carefully side by side,
Waiting to be liberally thrown on a tortilla
Spread open and inviting;
The revolting silence of disbelief,
Leftovers left too long in the fridge,
Crammed behind the mustard, forgotten
Fermenting,
Until the rancid smell pervades everything around;
The bitter silence of jilted lovers,
Burned chocolate, milk gone sour,
Food eaten unknowing,
Its salmonella-poison masked
By other tastes;
The cold silence of grudge,
A brainfreeze—
Icy daggers borne of too much introspection—
That punctures logic
And shatters compassion,
Leaving taste buds numb;
The smooth, creamy silence
Of meditation,
Swirls of custard and meringue,
Key lime pie and fruity sherbet,
Bathing the soul in being;
The spicy cinnamon taste of accomplishment,
Warm, dry silence
That momentarily satisfies the palate
But leaves the soul thirsting for more
In just a few hours;
The blubbery aspic of loneliness,
Gelatin wiggling on the tongue,
Silence swilled
Like too much water
Until the stomach distends of its own accord,
Bloated from unwanted gluttony;
The sweet silence of years of acquaintance,
A familiar, lovely taste—
Comfort food—
Calorie-rich with love and memory;
The tasteless silence of death,
Cottonmouth on the tongue,
Unwanted heartburn
Stuck in the throat,
Which will not go away.
Copyright 2007 by Jessica Keeslar
Critique by Jendi Reiter
Jessica Keeslar's poem "Silence" is full of surprises. Leading off with an observation so familiar as to have become clichéd, she reclaims it by force of will, applying all her inventiveness and exuberance to the conceit around which she has built the poem, until she has established her authority as someone with fresh insights to offer. Her zesty, unexpected, yet always apt metaphors disclose the true character of both silence and food, in the same way as the proverbial Eskimo's vocabulary is meant to reveal fine gradations among weather conditions whose individuality we formerly ignored.
Snow is snow, we might say, to justify our lack of attention. Like snow, silence at first appears simple, empty, easily understood. By pairing this austere and seemingly featureless phenomenon with something as varied and abundant as food, almost its opposite, Keeslar makes us notice both the richness of silence and the loss that is the flip side of food's nurturing.
The opening stanzas, which in my opinion are the weakest, have a cute, chatty tone that led me to expect light verse. The poem's playful spirit is one reason it works: the Eskimo-language factoid has been cited so often in a sentimental, didactic "stop and smell the roses" context that Keeslar's over-the-top descriptions strike a refreshingly self-aware note of parodic humor.
It wasn't until the stanza beginning "The crunchy, loud silence of awkwardness" that I realized something important was happening in this poem. This is where she starts to let it all hang out, digging into the experience of awkwardness with a messy scene that makes us laugh and cringe at once. A bad poem often fails because the author has no humility, that is, no sense that her powerful emotions might be ridiculous in a certain light. I was worried by the portentousness of the first two stanzas, but here, Keeslar winks to let us know she's in on the joke.
The metaphors become more creative as the poem progresses. "The cold silence of grudge,/A brainfreeze—" how clever to pair (sweet) ice cream and (bitter) resentment, forcing us to puzzle out the underlying similarity. Both can be pleasures we gorge ourselves upon, thinking at first to nurture ourselves, but later finding that this self-indulgence is more of a headache than it's worth. "The spicy cinnamon taste of accomplishment" and "The blubbery aspic of loneliness" transcend reductive explanation by analogy. These lines directly translate mental states into physical sensations that startle us because the connections are at once so unexpected and so right.
Keeslar makes the interesting choice to end the poem on a note of deprivation. Though not all of the emotions explored in the poem are happy ones by any means, up to this point the overall mood leaned toward affirmation and abundance. As in meditation, where both pleasant and unpleasant feelings are to be studied and embraced without judgment, Keeslar seemed to be setting negative experiences (awkwardness, anger, loneliness) within a larger, more generous and positive frame of reference. Even decay has its own rich palette to be savored, she says. But ending with the death stanza, rather than slipping it in earlier before an upbeat conclusion, somehow undermines this hope. As a reader, I feel disappointment, maybe even betrayal, because my expectations for the poem were frustrated. As a critic, I'm not sure this is a bad thing.
The descriptions of the different kinds of silence are pitch-perfect and I wouldn't change them at all. I would, however, seriously condense the opening three stanzas. They lack the musical rhythm and unusual imagery of the stanzas that follow, and their tone is somehow too precious. If Keeslar wants to keep the over-used Eskimo-snow reference, which does have the virtue of setting this poem within an instantly comprehensible tradition, she might want to lead off with her own original thought, instead of placing too much weight on an observation already handled so often by her predecessors. Below, a rough attempt at a new beginning for this poem:
Silence serves up as many dishes
as the Eskimos' words for snow—
For those with stomachs large enough to partake
Each schizophrenic offering,
Savor the flavor
Of each soundless course
Cooked with care for them alone:
The champagne-bubbly silence of anticipation,
etc.
In this revision, I tried to preserve the phrases that were most individual, substituted the stronger and more specific word "schizophrenic" for "different", and foregrounded the poem's true subjects in the first line. I eliminated phrases that seemed merely repetitive of concepts already introduced. The Eskimo reference suffices to convey the inadequacy of a single word to convey a multifaceted experience. Thus, I cut out the first few lines of the second stanza, which spell out this message in a way that felt like overkill. I might like to see a more tactile, unexpected word in place of "schizophrenic" (mental illness being nearly a poetic cliché itself) to express the dissonance of flavors that Keeslar is about to ask us to swallow. This author has a great talent for the objective correlative that she needs to put on display right from the beginning of this adventurous poem.
Where could a poem like "Silence" be submitted? The following contests may be of interest:
Second Light Poetry Competition
Entries must be received by October 1
British group of women writers over 40 offers prizes up to 300 pounds; entries may be published or unpublished
Beullah Rose Poetry Prize
Postmark Deadline: January 1
$200 prize for unpublished poems by women, from the journal Smartish Pace; online entries accepted
Edwin Markham Prize in Poetry
Postmark Deadline: November 1
Prize for unpublished poems includes $500 and publication in Reed Magazine, the literary journal of San Jose State University
Wild Violet Writing Contests
Postmark Deadline: November 30
Literary e-zine Wild Violet offers prizes of $100 for poetry and fiction; online entries accepted
This poem and critique appeared in the September 2007 issue of Winning Writers Newsletter (subscribe free).
Categories: Poetry Critiques
