Week Three: Lonely as a Leftover Thumb
or: figure & image
“Girl in the Doorway” by Dorianne Laux
She is twelve now, the door to her room
closed, telephone cord trailing the hallway
in tight curls. I stand at the dryer, listening
through the thin wall between us, her voice
rising and falling as she describes her new life.
Static flies in brief blue stars from her socks,
her hairbrush in the morning. Her silver braces
shine inside the velvet case of her mouth.
Her grades rise and fall, her friends call
or they don’t, her dog chews her new shoes
to a canvas pulp. Some days she opens her door
and musk rises from the long crease in her bed,
fills the dim hall. She grabs a denim coat
and drags the floor. Dust swirls in gold eddies
behind her. She walks through the house, a goddess,
each window pulsing with summer. Outside,
the boys wait for her teeth to straighten.
They have a vibrant patience.
When she steps onto the front porch, sun shimmies
through the tips of her hair, the V of her legs,
fans out like wings under her arms
as she raises them and waves. Goodbye, Goodbye.
Then she turns to go, folds up
all that light in her arms like a blanket
and takes it with her.
Figurative Language. Like many other find contemporary poems, “Girl
in the Doorway” takes a good part of its power from its rich and
imaginative use of figures of speech. The expression “tight curls,” which
the poem uses to describe a phone cord, also evokes the young girl
herself, since “tight curls” is a phrase more commonly heard in reference
to hair than to telephone cords (by the way, telephones used to have
CORDS. Get used to it!). It is an example of the complex use of imagistic
language, which works on both a conscious, explicit level and on a level
that is subconscious and implicit. Ambiguity is the word usually used for this
technique of using a word or phrase so that it has multiple meanings or implications.
Ambiguity is an important aspect of language and an important device in
poetry.
The “thin wall” between the mother and daughter is at once the literal
wall between them and the wall of non-communication that adolescents
so commonly erect between themselves and their parents—that is to say,
it is a metaphoric wall as well as a literal one. A metaphor is a comparison
that does not state it is a comparison. To say there is a wall between two
people is a way of saying there is such a lack of communication between
them it is as if there were a wall between them. When the poet says, “She
walks through the house, a goddess,” the use of “goddess” is metaphoric.
The reader knows that she means the young girl was like a goddess—with
the beauty, poise, and self-assurance that a goddess would display.
The phrase “her voice rising and falling as she describes her new life,” is
also richly evocative, the “rising and falling” suggesting the volatile
moods of a typical twelve-year-old. And, of course, seen in a larger
perspective, that is precisely what the excitation of a young woman’s
phone calls are, manifestations of her need to describe her new life. This
is a girl at puberty, a child turning into a young woman, and the
telephone frenzy of her life at this age bears witness to that
transformation. The “rising and falling” will be repeated a few lines later
with reference to her grades, signaling the mother’s sardonic and
exasperated humor.
How interesting and imaginative to use the static electricity from her
socks and hairbrush to allude to the “sparkling” nature of her youthful
energy, the constant excitation of her spirit. Since the narrator is standing
at the dryer, the static electricity coming from her daughter’s socks is a
realistic detail; nonetheless, the description of the girl surrounded by stars
makes her visually into a goddess, an image that becomes explicit only
later in the poem. And yet those stars at her feet and in her hair are also
kind of “static,” a word that connotes interference, bad communication,
trouble. “Don’t give me any static,” someone might say, idiomatically. It’s
also a word that one thinks of it terms of phones, isn’t it? The word, as
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used in this poem, is richly ambiguous. That doesn’t mean it’s unclear, but
that it contains a complex of meanings.
“Her silver braces shine inside the velvet case of her mouth” is a
strikingly unusual and effective image. The
mouth is seem
metaphorically as a “velvet case,” which allows the reader to see those
braces as expensive silver jewelry being exhibited. For a parent’s point of
view, given their cost, that’s just what a child’s braces are! The narratorparent, which some exasperation, then thinks of her daughter’s grades
rising and falling, the phone calls she waits for expectantly, and her dog
“chewing her new shoes to a canvas pulp.” At this point it is worthwhile
to note the objects that the poet has chosen to use characterize the
daughter: a phone in a room with the door closed, socks, a hairbrush,
braces, erratic grades, equally erratic friends, a dog, and new shoes in
ruin. They are all well-chosen items, ones that are perfectly representative
of the life of an adolescent American girl. Indeed, except for the boys—
who are about to enter the poem—they are the central facts of her life.
The musk rising “from the long crease in her bed” is again well
imagined—at once erotic, adolescent, and a way of somewhat
humorously characterizing the disheveled condition in which the
narrator’s daughter leaves her room.
The denim coat dragging the floor again characterizes the girl—but here
too there is that underlying suggestion of the goddess, this time with the
train of her gown sweeping the ground behind her. The dust that “swirls
in gold eddies behind her” is another image that both characterizes a
typical teenage girl with her careless and sloppy habits and sets the stage
for, or foreshadows, the figure of the next line, the explicit image of her as a
goddess.
When the narrator tells us that each window is “pulsing with summer,” it
is surely that young, vibrant girl to whom that phrase refers, as much as it
does to the heat of the day. It is also, certainly, the young boys to whom
that pulse alludes, those boys who “wait for her teeth to straighten.” So
that simple phrase becomes rich with implication. And how right that
“vibrant patience” is in the phrase that follows.
Outside, about to leave, the sun shimmering through her hair and the V
of her legs, the daughter raises her hand to wave goodbye, and the light
“fans out like winds under her arms.” Here the light has not been turned
into wind but is explicitly compared to winds. We call this kind of explicit
comparison a simile. Had it been a metaphor, the poet would have said
that the light was wings fanning out under her arms.
The image of the wings is an effective and meaningful one because the
reader understands that she is flying off into her own life. She “folds
up/all that light in her arms like a blanket/and takes it with her.” Folding
the light like a blanket is another simile. It is a stunning conclusion, the
young goddess waving goodbye to her mother and taking all of her light
with her.
How much color and light there is in this poem: blue stars, silver braces,
gold eddies, until at last, outdoors, she—and the poem—are bathed in
sunlight. But there are also textures and smells in the poem—velvet and
musk. Note as well how active are the poem’s verbs: the cord trails, static
flies, her braces shine, dust swirls, the window pulses, the sun shimmies and
fans out. In all, the language is rich, active, specific, precise, evocative. It is
this sort of language from which powerful poetry is made.
The Poem’s Internal Rhyme. Since we went over internal rhyme last
class, you were probably paying more attention than usual to the internal
music of the poem. You might have noticed that the rich music of “Girl
in the Doorway” depends to a large extent on an abundance of carefully
used rhymes—assonance and alliterative sound patterns. In the first half
of the poem, we have the assonance of “door,” “cord,” “hall,”
“morning,” “ball,” “wall,” “falling,” “fall,” and “call.” There are
numerous assonant rhymes based on the long i sound in “dryer,”
“rising,” “describes,” “flies,” “shine,” etc. Notice the alliterative c’s in:
“her room/closed, telephone cord trailing the hallway/in tight curls”; and
the alliterative s’s and b’s in the line, “Static flied in brief blue stars from
her socks.” It would be worthwhile to look through the poem and pick
out as many of those sound echoes as you can, for it is in large measure
just such repetitions of sound that make this charming poem so musical.
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“I Went to the Movies Hoping Just Once The Monster Got the Girl”
by Ronald Koertge
He was as hungry for love as I. He lay in his cave
or castle longing for the doctor’s lovely nurse,
the archeologist’s terrific assistant while I hid
in my bedroom, acne lighting up the gloom like
a stoplight, wondering if anybody anywhere would
ever marry me.
I was hardly able to stay in my seat as the possibilities
were whittled away; her laughter at his clumsy gifts,
her terror at his dumbness and rage, his final realization
synapses lazy as fly balls connecting at last as he
stand in the rain peering through her bedroom window
she in chiffon and dainty slingbacks he looking at
his butcher shop hands knowing he could never unsnap
a bra
and in comes Jock Mahoney or Steve Cochran and takes
everything off in a wink and she kisses him over
and over, wants to kiss him has been waiting to kiss
him while the monster feels his own lips big as eels
or can’t find them at all or finds four.
I almost shouted into the dark that life with Jock
or Steve was almost something to be feared. Couldn’t
she see herself in a year or two dying at a barbecue,
another profile nobody with his tongue in her ear?
Wouldn’t she regret that she had not chosen to stay
with someone whose adoration was as gigantic as
his feet?
I went to the movies hoping that just once somebody
would see beneath the scales and stitched to the huge
borrowed heart and choose it, but each time Blob
was dissolved, Ogre subdued, Ratman trapped, Giant
Leech dislodged forever and each time Sweater Girl
ran sobbing into those predictable rolled up sleeves
I started to cry too, afraid for myself, lonely as
a leftover thumb.
“What’s the matter with him?” the cheerleaders asked
the high scorers as they filed out.
“Nothing. He’s weird, that’s all.”
Koertge’s poem utilizes a number of original and amusing tropes, or
figures of speech. Since the narrator of the poem wanted to be invisible
by hiding in his room, the idea of his acne “lighting up the gloom like a
stoplight” is at once funny, sad, and psychologically evocative. Magnified
by his self-consciousness, his pimples glow red in the dark, an act, in
effect, as a stoplight to his social life. That pimples, no matter how red
and shiny, can light up the gloom “like a stoplight” is pure hyperbole—
that is to say, a conscious exaggeration for effect. Saying pimples are like a
stoplight is, of course, a simile—one of Koertge’s typically outrageous
ones. “Synapses lazy as fly balls” is another simile (remember: similes
usually contain the words “like” or “as”). Since the narrator of the poem
is remembering his adolescence, an image drawn from baseball is an
especially appropriate one. The word “lazy” is also a perfect choice. To
call a synapse or a fly ball “lazy” is an example of personification,
projecting human qualities and characteristics onto an inanimate object.
“Lips big as eels” is another unusual simile, giving us a sense not only of
their enormous size, but of a slimy and unappealing texture. A simile
such as “someone whose adoration was as gigantic as his feet” seems
marvelously right. “Lonely as a leftover thumb” is another strikingly
appropriate (and unusual) simile, reminding us of film monsters put
together from spare body parts. It suggests the notion of being “all
thumbs” while associating the separation of the thumb from the other
fingers (and an extra thumb surely even more alienated yet) with the
loneliness of the poor creature whom the narrator so wants to see win
the girl.
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The metaphoric phrase “high scorers” near the end of the poem is
another example of ambiguity, a device that, like metaphor, is at the very
heart of poetic language. “High scorers” means both those who are
successful athletes—that is, those who score a lot of points in basketball
or football games—and those men who are frequently successful at
getting dates/laid, those who “score” with women. The ambiguity, then,
elegantly serves to characterize the other boys as both jocks and studs.
Keep in mind that when used effectively in poetry, this sort of
ambiguity does not lead to vagueness or confusion, but to an
enrichment of the meaning.
Metaphor and Common Language. The word “stud” that was used a
moment ago is itself a metaphor—a comparison of a sexually active and
potent male with a stallion used for breeding. But the word “stud” is so
common in this extended usage that we forget its root is metaphoric.
We call these unconscious comparisons made in ordinary speech dead metaphors.
The word “dead” in that phrase is itself a dead metaphor, since it is being
used figuratively, but it is so common in that usage that we usually don’t
recognize its metaphoric nature. “Root” in the sense that we have just
used it is also being used metaphorically. But because it is so common to
use the word in that manner, you probably didn’t think of it as a
metaphor. Literally, in means the underground branching of a plant or
tree, its foundation and connection to the nutrient system of the
surrounding earth. But by extension we speak of the “root” of a
problem, or the “root” causes of depression. We could have said the
“basis” or “genesis” or a problem rather than the root, but language
tends to find concrete ways of talking about abstractions, often by
employing metaphors. Thus it is not surprising the metaphoric language
is often used by poets to make abstract concepts concrete. For example,
here is a couplet by Charles Reznikoff:
My hair was caught in the wheels of a clock
and torn from my head: see, I am bald!
What a wonderfully imaginative and vivid way to say that the passage of
time has trapped him into old age! Here the substitution of something
tangible, the “wheels of a clock,” for the abstract concept of time, is
brilliantly employed, the couplet evoking all the anguish of age—the
violent sorrows of growing old made concrete by his hair having been
torn from his head by time.
A Warning. Some poets are so enamored of figurative language that they
will sacrifice all sense of proportion and felicity to decorate their poems
with similes and metaphors, no matter how destructive to the overall
effect. Figurative language, well used, can help turn an indifferent poem
into a wonderful one—but beware of cluttering your poems with
numerous figures that detract from, rather than add to, their power!
Week Three Exercises
1. An Exercise in Figurative Language
A. Create effective similes—striking and apt comparisons—by filling in
the blanks in the following sentences. Your solution might be a single
word or a short phrase, or it might be a lengthier, more complex
description. Obviously, try not to go for the most obvious comparison—
hint: it might be a good idea to set your first reaction aside. You want to
come up with the more unique and vivid comparisons as possible:
1. In his rage, my father would band on the wall like a ----.
2. Among her new in-laws, the young wife was as nervous as ----.
3. I paced the room as restless as a ----.
4. Like a ----, his smile suddenly collapsed.
5. It was the old sycamore in the front yard, swaying like a ----.
B. Now create evocative images—strong and descriptive language—to
complete these sentences. Again, you might do well to disregard the first
idea that comes to mind:
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1. I loved the ---- of the wash on the line in the summer morning.
2. I was afraid of his ----, his drunken, ungainly walk.
3. I will not forget the ---- of your lips, your skin’s ----, or the ----of your
eyes.
4. She wanted to draw me deeper into the ---- of her life.
C. In three or four sentences that sparkle with linguistic invention,
describe the following. Make your descriptions come alive using precise,
charged language. The goal, of course, is to describe each item accurately,
vividly, and engagingly:
1. a rundown building
language must, in the final analysis, be at the service of the overall effect
of that the poem makes, and not simply stuck in the poem for its own
sake.
3. An Object Poem Using Metaphors.
Take an object that you have nearby—a ring, a paperclip, a pen,
Chapstick, etc.—and place it in front of you. Spend a few minutes
looking at it quietly and calmly. Notice things about it that you never
noticed before. Allow yourself to feel it, smell it, observe it from different
angles. Write four metaphors turning it into four different things: “The
paperclip is a silver whirlpool…” Then, write four similes: “The lipstick
is like a fleshy purple bullet…”
2. an old table OR desk OR bicycle OR truck
Now write a poem about the object employing some of those figures of
speech. Let the poem go where it wants to, its direction determined more
by the inventive play of language than by your conscious efforts
3. a particular potted plant
4. Write a Hike-U
4. someone working in an office OR a construction site
Most of us are familiar with traditional haiku. Each is a three-line,
seventeen-syllable poem that uses common language, deals with the
natural world, suggests the season, and expresses an insight about the
word. There should be five syllables in the first and third lines and seven
in the second. Below are a couple examples:
5. a small incident seen in the street OR in a store
2. A Brief, Descriptive Poem.
Take the metaphor, simile, or descriptive passage that you like best from
the previous exercise and use it as the basis of a short poem—one that
is no longer than seven lines. If you have described a building in four
sentences, see now if you can turn that passage into a poem,
concentrating on precision of language, internal music, and rhythmic
grace. Needless to say, it should not be a less effective composition as a
poem than it was as a prose paragraph. If you used the line “I shall not
forget the ---- of your lips…” perhaps only one additional sentence
would be needed to turn it into an effective love poem. If you create
additional similes and metaphors for your poem, be careful not to load it
with so many figures that it seems cluttered. Remember that figurative
Loneliness—which makes
the Autumn evening hues seem
deeper…lovelier…
-- Buson
Summer’s green mountains
and valleys, now simply white
snow—empty…silent.
-- Joso
Now, here’s a haiku by the American poet and novelist Jack Kerouac that
captures some of the same flavor, the same ability to grant beingness and
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reality to our earth-born compatriots, but at the same time, makes no
attempt to imitate the feel of the Japanese. It is a very American haiku:
In my medicine cabinet,
the winter fly
has died of old age.
Allen Ginsberg, in his book Cosmopolitan Greetings, has included a section
he calls “American sentences.” These are seventeen-syllable sentences
that, like Kerouac’s haiku, have an entirely American flavor. Ginsburg
doesn’t bother with the division into three segments but presents his
images and epiphanies as ordinary sentences. Here are some American
sentences done by young contemporary writers who have been inspired
both by traditional haiku and by Ginsberg’s poems:
Pulling tissues from a box, the baby builds an igloo on her head.
--Nina Garin
The phone, coiled like an ancient serpent, whispers vague threats and
promises.
--Terry Hertzler
White Cessna and seagull cross in a sky unconcerned with birds or men.
--Will Boland
Taking these examples into consideration, write a half-dozen American
haiku by composing seventeen-syllable sentences. These are perfect
poems to compose while walking or driving, perfect poems to write while
you hike (hence the name), or stroll in the park, or sit waiting for the bus.
The trick is to make them sound more like sentences than
poems—and that no one would guess they are exactly seventeen
syllables long.
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