What an absolute construct this poem presents, using the mixed internals of human consciousness about the self then attaching that to elements of the not self in a manner that lights itself along by shorting-out between the surreal and the absurd, yielding a sort of fixity with an equilibrium between absorbtion and return, the fulcrum of which is the poem itself.

The first five lines establish, using technical and mythical distances, a blunted cosmology between mother and daughter; the mother is resolved into an instinctual profile, caring but harsh, a further awayness for every presence made; the daughter is almost a by-product, saved only in that she has enough remove from the instinctual to allow her observations and thoughts to still freely transit the nearly sterile depths in her relationship with her mother -the poem's title seems nearly template in this ragard, a thinking about another thinking, both physically fed, but lacking any blood-heat to the feeding, either of the selves or one to the other.

Another aspect that arises from the poem is that the 'mother' almost seems to be the urban environment, a city with its fixtures and motions, a 'mother' that absorbed so much of the wherewithal of the biological mother that they became a harsh, shared reality in the daughter's mind.

"Bakelite brush, bristles up, still fleeced
with a child's hair, a wavering frequency
in the key of oblivion, mammalian, contracting." Here is a
resignation that is relentless: oblivion absorbing, mammalian giving/abandoning perforce, with 'contracting' servicing both the giving and oblivion, a single nerve in time resonating anew from contact with opposites. These lines suggest that the realtionship between mother and daughter amounted to little more than static electricity, the ghost of what real love could give and accomplish. This poem is like a cubist painting, coarse, done with grim hues. Cold. Unlovely. But a true family portrait for these times.

IF she hadn't titled the poem as she did, would you have gone to the "it's about her mother" interpretation? I would not have, personally. I would have gone with something larger, more environmental, as you sort of do with your suggestion about the city. Also, I do NOT love the bizarre & over-reaching word choices, as quoted by Angel, who ends up admiring them, after first seeming to struggle -- particularly, "homunculus" which strikes my EAR wrong. Would welcom eoyur thoughts, thanks. Also, martin greene has reposted (since the "New Fray" has appar. erased all the old posts or is hiding them hostage somewhere...) his fine poem, "Taking Attendance" if you have a minute to look at it.

btw, "a further awayness for every presence made" is pretty good; you do have a way of coining new meanings, don't you? (I wouldn't have gone with 'made' myself but it's a strong line.)

Ap;

Thanks for your time to read/respond.

Acutally, my over-powering sense of the poem is that the nurture aspect of the 'mother' in this poem is that 'she' is the 'at large', from the number of words used, to the descriptos made, the city is more maternal than the blood-heat items - childhood, hairbrush, food, mythical referance; poem uses the 'man-made' more than the 'natural', this too, conveys the displacement of the 'mother' from the biological to the at large.

As to the 'bizarre & over-reaching word choices', I think they serve to reenforce the disconnect between the 'mother and daughter', serve more as aesthetic wedge than semantic.

My 'way of coining new meanings' - accidents of a crowded mind.

Will try to get to Martin's. Crabby-sort of day for me - time, space, presence of mind not in sync.

Best to you and yours.

Thanks for the reply & for the gift of the idea of the strange "bizarrer and over-reaching" (imho) word choices as "aesthetic wedge (more than) semantic." It's a highly puzzling and -- I guess -- thus challenging poem. IF you get a chance on this cranky day of yours, you might want to check out two other poems by this poet that I (in Mary Ann's absence!) Top Posted. I find them far more accessible, pleasurable to read and frankly, 'attractive.' Anyway, if you get a chance, thanks. I think you will enjoy these two poems of martin's. "Accidents of a crowded mind" or not -- you sure come up with eye-punching phrases! Thank, A-p.

Hi A_p,

The fault, as usual with Pinsky's Picks, may not be merely that the poet is "overreaching" in her choices of words (the alleged effect), but that the poet is speaking to the poet more than to the audience (the suspected cause). It is difficult to crack the metaphorical code without the cipher, and as with most of Pinsky's Poets, the author keeps much of that cipher under lock and key. In other words, I will always have difficulty believing that a poem is "great" simply because it is more or less inaccessible.

I like her "Lullabye" much better. Her metaphors there aren't much easier to grasp in detail, but at least experience with the biblical Song of Songs (one of the most mysterious poems of all time) -- and with human love and human anatomy -- gives me the ability to appreciate what she's driving at overall.

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