In-Depth Look: Bianca Phipps – “When the Boy Says He Loves My Body”
Appreciating poetry is often about patience: sitting with a poem, meditating on it, and re-reading it multiple times. With spoken word, we don’t always get a chance to do that. This series is about taking that chance, and diving a little deeper into some of the new poems going up on Button.
“I find my body is a locked door. I find I locked myself out.”
This whole series is built around the idea of “sitting with a poem, meditating on it, and re-reading it multiple times” in order to come to a deeper understanding of and appreciation for that poem. That process, however, is so much bigger than poetry. The basic idea of thinking more critically about our language, our actions, our culture– everything– is valuable whether or not you have any interest in writing and performing poems.
This piece captures some of why that is. The entire poem is built around a “catalyst moment:” there is an action (when the boy says he loves my body, but does not say he loves me), and a reaction. That reaction is full of imagery, metaphor, and a deeper analysis of the catalyst, even if nothing really “happens” on a literal level– the poem is a meditation, an opportunity to cultivate within ourselves a fuller understanding of that line that kicks everything off.
Some of my favorite poems are built like this– give us a scenario that does not at all seem special, and then illuminate why it is special. Give us a “simple” image, and then show us its complexity. In this poem’s case, give us a “throwaway” bit of dialogue (as something like this catalyst statement could potentially be interpreted, at least by its speaker), and then explore its layers, its nuance, its impact.
Appreciating poetry is often about patience: sitting with a poem, meditating on it, and re-reading it multiple times. With spoken word, we don’t always get a chance to do that. This series is about taking that chance, and diving a little deeper into some of the new poems going up on Button.
“Eye for an eye? More like tooth for whole skull.”
The stereotype about spoken word is that it’s all “big,” capital-P Political Poems, and there is some truth in that. When the stage is one of the only public forums we have to discuss the things that we care about, it’s only natural that it becomes a platform for work that engages with the world. That stereotype, however, often seems to be framed negatively, as though “political poems” were inherently hollow, just “ranting and raving” without any craft or heart.
This poem is a great counterpoint to that, showing how a poem can be both explicitly political and very much grounded, concrete, and human. From “the hands of your loved ones,” to a mother’s voice, to a clear-eyed view of Obama’s legacy, this isn’t a poem about “those people over there,” a stumble that some attempts at political poetry make; the poem finds a way to comment on world events through the lens of personal experience.
In “Why Authoritarians Attack the Arts,” scholar and poet Eve Ewing writes: “Art creates pathways for subversion, for political understanding and solidarity among coalition builders. Art teaches us that lives other than our own have value.” I’m hearing this poem in that context; the work that this poem is doing is important, and is work that we (especially those of us who are poets) can and should contribute to as well.
“I am learning that the difference between a garden and a graveyard is only what you choose to put in the ground.”
Don’t miss this week’s Best of Button playlist, featuring the top-viewed recent videos on the Button YouTube Channel. Today’s additions: Rudy Francisco, Jared Singer, & Neil Hilborn. Congrats poets!
In-Depth Look: Hieu Minh Nguyen – “The Translation of Grief”
Appreciating poetry is often about patience: sitting with a poem, meditating on it, and re-reading it multiple times. With spoken word, we don’t always get a chance to do that. This series is about taking that chance, and diving a little deeper into some of the new poems going up on Button.
“I throw a fistful of sand in the air and pretend to weep.”
I started writing down lines from this poem that could be used as a jumping-off point to begin to explore its central idea, but I ended up writing down just about the entire poem. And maybe that’s the lesson for aspiring poets– know what work the poem is trying to do, and make sure every line– every word– contributes in a meaningful way to that work.
A room has four walls (if that); it doesn’t need five or six or seven. That can take a lifetime to figure out, if it can be “figured out” at all, but this poem from Hieu Minh Nguyen is a brilliant example of what that kind of efficiency can look like. Note how every line is a complete thought, but how every thought also functions as a transition to the next thought. Take a closer look at the third quarter (or so) of the poem:
I anticipate this grief by exhausting it with music. I open the casket; I make her dance in the center. It is the habit of the artist to see a hole and fill it with imagination. It is the habit of the living to see everyone you love and imagine them dead. I can lick the dirt off of all of your faces. I can sing any dirge, in any key, but the translation of grief will always be flat. There will always be the contrasting light between what is expected, and what would change your bones.
The sound, the light, the taste, the movement in these lines– the sensory/concrete language is so full without being overwhelming. Each one of those lines could work on their own, as a shareable Instagram quote, or as a tattoo. But together, they flow elegantly into one another, a series of images building momentum and intensity, leading up to the poem’s final image of the single black strand of hair.
That’s all shop talk, poetry stuff. But this poem also pushes boundaries with regards to substance, exploring something profound, unsettling, and important about grief, about mortality, and about translation– both in terms of the “translating her life into English” line, and the deeper process of how we translate other people’s lives/deaths into our own grief– selfishly, imperfectly, inescapably.
Find more from Hieu Minh Nguyen (including info on his NEW book) here!
“I can’t help but believe if the women I loved were gathered at a table, the general consensus among them would be, alright, the good thing about Omar is that he doesn’t take anything seriously. The bad thing about Omar, is that he doesn’t take anything seriously.”
Don’t miss this week’s Best of Button playlist, featuring the top-viewed recent videos on the Button YouTube Channel. Today’s additions: Omar Holmon, Anna Binkovitz, & Neil Hilborn. Congrats poets!
