“Illocality”(读书笔记)

I loved reading Joseph Massey’s book Illocality. I think he learned from modernist poet’s style to write the poems, and when I read his book, it reminded me of Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “The Map”. Both writers describe how the landscapes look like by using rich and colorful words to help image the place as if it was right in front of the reader. For example, in Illocality,Massey brings life to nature by saying, “All those flowering trees / rooted to graves.” By reading his book, I could visualize the four seasons: spring,summer, fall, and winter. Massey explains what summer looks like by saying:

"Summer’s hum and lag. / To walk into it---/ breathe the frequencies/ that knot the air,another/ animal baffled/ to be an animal. /A contrail divides the sky line wrinkled with heat. /Flies circle trash--- /clear plastic---at the seam between brick path and lawn. /Hours atrophy. /There is the inexpressible/ but it doesn’t show itself today. / It doesn’t show itself in summer."

While Massey describes summer as a special and pleasant time of the year, he contrasts the moods of summer with the gloomy ones of winter. He makes it seem as though winter forces people to stay inside for a long time by writing:

"Peripheral forsythia uncinched--/ a quincunx pattern---/ around a bare foundation:/ cement the same bloodless / color as this stretched -to-broken/ sun, At the window / a wasp-- two wasps swat the glare ./ How many weeks indoors  / watching the lines that cross, that stain/ and form a field / from the field/ I forgot, winter forgot. / Birdsong next door /slipknots construction noise. / The day has its ballast."

Due to long, cold winters,people look forward to the warmth that spring brings. Massey describes spring in “birdsong next door” by saying that if you hear a bird song, it means spring is here. He continues his description of this season by explaining:

"A palette stammers/ to assemble the landscape. / Rain claps/ dead leaves. / In overgrown brush/ a nameless animal’s short-circuited shriek. / a lucid dream/signals the new season. / all those flowering trees/ rooted graves.”

 From his point of view, we see seasons change in the poem through the language that he uses: "When weather / won’t say / the unsaid. / An exchange/ between light and wind--/ the way I’d want/ a line to move/ to carve space. / Light and wind/ and the objects/ between them, / pronouncing/ only themselves." In addition to the imagery that Massey portrays through his book, he also writes his poems about weather with great detail:

"December / reverberates with decay/ and the freezing over of decay / How the weather reads into you; a phrase at the back of the throat---/a phrase that won’t flower / Snowscape snowswept/ and the gravestones narrow as day narrow."

This poem is relatable to the reader since it incorporates aspects from everyday life. Massey grew up in a cold place in this book, so he describes in great detail cold weather to the reader. For example, in March it can still snow,which he acknowledges by saying, “March rain snow thaw/ crumpled metal sign stuck/ gravel-grained mud/ mulch ground to dust over sidewalk divots.” The way he describes March, sounds very similar to weather in northern of China: “false spring fibrous light/ broadsides arkose sandstone cliff face/ the Connecticut below throws silent lines of current/window snowscape.” He’s poems bring us through the four season of the place in which he lived. Most his book describes places with such vivid detail as if his poetry consisted of pictures instead of words. This means he writes about the landscape very well in that he tells us how to picture the place:

"To imagine a morning / the first sounds from the street and the house, / it halls scarifying consciousness / Antique glass smudges limbs /(more blue than green) / flared out over a roof / To imagine the raw circumference/ of a field as it wakes / what we make of it where our senses send us."

This quotation allows us to imagine the exact place since the words in the poem come to life, thus making it easier for the reader to understand the meaning of the poem. From Massey’s writing, I got ideas for my own poem. I looked outside the window at the landscape, and I saw leaves on the maple trees turning to different colors and each day the colors were different. After it rained one night, the leaves turned from green to yellow then red. Furthermore, my favorite roadside willow tree, it makes me smile every day. This willow tree reminds me of one that I grew up with. Each day I see the willow tree, I think back to when I was little girl, running through the water that surrounded the tree with my childhood friends. Willow trees bring me many sweet memories. Every day I see the sun rise and set behind the tree, it makes me think about my hometown. Day by day, all the leaves fly away and now my sweet willow tree only has stark branches. Like the leaves of a willow tree, I continue to float about not knowing where my life will stop. Compared to my poem, Massey’s poem uses words to describe the scene in a clearer manner and allows the reader to picture what happens within the book.