Break the Line

Exploring a poem and why it is the way it is.

Last fall I had an idea for a project where poets annotate their poems, breaking down what’s happening within the piece. I created an example to show the idea to some friends, and a prompt to go with it, and then got stuck on how the project should actually be presented in the world.

I found the example graphic again while going through my files, and decided that rather than continuing to be hung up on the ideal presentation I would share it with you here!

Here is the poem, sans notes:

I’ll include a text breakdown, but if you want to see the original example, here it is (since I made it for friends, it’s pretty conversational):

I created this prior to making the decision to “crack” the poem into two pieces.

I started with this line/title: Sometimes I want to ruin you. Paula Macena has a poem about her nemesis¹ with this line, and to me it sounded like part of a love poem.² With that seed, the ambition of the piece became to contextualize that line firmly in the love poem quadrant.

Screenshot of my text exchange with Ra after Paula read the poem.

like a geode I want to break open. — Originally I was going in another direction with the poem; I started with waves crashing against a cliff side, which felt like the right energy of ‘natural’ destruction, but it felt a little tired as far as images go.

I was having coffee with Ra Avis and trying to explain the feeling/desire to her and why it belonged in a love poem(not in a black widow way). The metaphor I landed on was a coconut—because a coconut is a whole object unto itself, but what people want is what is *inside* of the coconut. It doesn’t register as violence to crack into a coconut, but at a basic level you are “ruining” the integrity of this object. It was whole, in a particular way, and now it is not.

But the image of coconuts wasn’t right for the poem—maybe they’re sexy to someone but they’re not sexy to me, and it felt like it would take the poem in a different direction then I was trying to go. When I tried to come up with a similar image, geode was it. And then that became the scaffold of the poem.

Fracture — Once I had the geode image, there was an element of “how do I keep the tension between beauty and violence? How does this not become a poem about how everyone has beautiful, shiny, crystals inside them?” I ended up using a lot of ‘breaking’ words, and fracture is a word I associate with broken bones, so that was the right vibe (see: natural destruction). It also brings in the idea of fractioning something that was whole, although I wasn’t consciously thinking of that when I chose it.

Hold you to the light — The light makes the crystal sparkle (refraction!) but it’s also about inspection. Again, holding two ideas in tension. Am I trying to show you to your best advantage, or am I trying to see into every crevice?

Cut myself on the jagged edge— I was thinking about the physical reality of a geode, the raw edges that haven’t been sanded down or polished into smoothness. I also wanted to communicate that it’s not just the other person that’s impacted by this “breaking.” Both people are changed.

run my thumb over it a second time — There’s an element of sensory seeking here—maybe liking the pain of it or maybe wanting to be sure what you thought you felt is really what you felt.

Looking at this line now, it feels particularly vulnerable. There’s a certain grotesque satisfaction at play.

blood on quartz and so much grit — After I wrote this bit I was reading about geodes, seeing if there were any geology terms that might pop for me, and I read that iron is what makes amethyst purple. Maybe I knew that somewhere in the back of my brain. Blood + quartz = amethyst.

There’s also something so intimate about blood. It’s gross but also sometimes it’s sexy (see: vampires). And to mark something with blood has a lot of other meanings/implications (biblical, witchcraft, etc)

The word grit felt very evocative here—is the grit in the cut? Is the blood on the grit? Is this grit like dirt or grit like fortitude?

Not actually relevant to the content of the poem, but this line always makes me think of K. Flay’s Blood in the Cut.

Collapse toward a chasm — When I was using the coconut metaphor with Ra, she asked if the appeal was in changing another person. And I said that it is, but also it’s about wanting to crawl inside the other person and make a home in the pieces.

Collapse and chasm both felt like words that would say a lot with a little. Chasm is also very satisfying to say.

whose value is in how we call it precious — Amethyst used to be considered a precious gemstone, because it was harder to find. Now it’s more accessible, and it’s considered semi-precious. Like any gemstone (and a lot of other things), it’s only as valuable as people say/believe it is. Our feelings for/investment in other people is similarly arbitrary. We make it meaningful.

Fold into a fissure and stay there. — Christina Brown has a poem with the lines “zoom in, and unfurl” and I am *captivated* by those words. This was absolutely me trying to write my own version of that.

Fissure is a rock word, and a breaking word. I wanted to capture the idea of making a home in the absolute smallest space, like the way that romance or other big, relational feelings can invite us into making a meal from the tiniest crumb (another thing Christina’s poem is getting at).

Does ‘stay there’ mean that you have burrowed inside this other person, that they’ll never be without you? Or does it mean that you have shaped yourself around the shape of *them*?

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That’s the poem! Despite being only 66 words, a lot went into it.

If you’re interesting in doing your own annotation, here’s the prompt:

The goal is articulating and exploring the decisions that you made, rather than to explain what the poem is about (though one may lead to the other, to a certain extent.)

Consider:

• What is the project of the poem, and how did you achieve it?

• What were you thinking about in the moment of writing the poem versus after it was complete, or revisiting it now?

• What are the absences in the piece, or the paths you chose not to take?

• What influenced you in making the piece, directly or indirectly?

Also:

Biggest Little Zine Fair! is having an online fair! Zines are an excellent holiday gift! Everything is under $20, and we’ll even ship outside the US (send us a message for an international shipping quote).

We had to cancel our in-person fair due to weather, so I really hope internet folks will spend some time browsing zines and support our makers. All proceeds go back to the artist who made the zine!

1. a nemesis? I don’t want to limit her to just one; be plentiful in your nemesi

2. do I confuse all intense feelings? Perhaps!