monday poem #51: Tracy Ryan, "Liebchen"
I purchased Tracy Ryan's Hothouse completely on spec: found it when truepenny and I were booktrolling recently, acquired it on the strength of the book design, the cover art, the fact that it's from a small Australian publisher, and the first poem.
Lots of poems about fruits and flowers - pomegranate, fig, yellow rose, hyacinth, hydrangea, bougainvillea, marigold, camellia, iris, orchid. Poems about Australia and Ireland, poems after Rodin, poems about sex and peacocks and mammograms and wasps. Parts of it hang together very well as a collection, but there are departures and odd notes; some of the poems are too abstract for my tastes, but others startled me with their precision.
Only a few of them moved me. This was one, because it is so smart about the way girls worship each other, use and hurt each other, fail sometimes to get over each other.
Liebchen
I never was your
dear little thing
nagging, niggling
shadow right through
your brilliant career:
you were Judy D.
and Debbie Harry
in one, and outraged when
I said so, you were
there on the day
we started Year One, me glum
and dark as a pudding
you in your chopped straw
bowl-cut, six summers of
strands green at the end
from too much
swimming
skinned knees and
Brownies
right through to high school
diminished and neutered
I worshipped you -
Liebchen,
you called me, with sarcasm,
or only
my surname
you were lead in the musical
you were the girl
a future film star fell for
and you spurned him
inner thighs bald from a life
on horseback
breasts fine and light as
new pears
you were one of those girls
from the right
side of town, and when we went
to the costume dance
you let me go with you
cowgirl and Indian
odd couple that wasn't
when I beat you at French
your only second
you swore I cheated
when you kissed Bob Green
from the school play
I was humiliated
on your behalf
though he did
use the word 'impart'
correctly
and that impressed me
you belong to a lost list
of girls who disappeared
that is to say
who never needed me
except for killing time
making up numbers
or having an audience
a way to rehearse
the real thing, like blowing
on milk bottles
before the flute lesson
and because of this
you have entered me
more sharply
than the keenest note
you have not
grown up, you have lodged
there and work your magical
infection through every
vein, dear little thing
Liebchen.
- Tracy Ryan
from Hothouse
Lots of poems about fruits and flowers - pomegranate, fig, yellow rose, hyacinth, hydrangea, bougainvillea, marigold, camellia, iris, orchid. Poems about Australia and Ireland, poems after Rodin, poems about sex and peacocks and mammograms and wasps. Parts of it hang together very well as a collection, but there are departures and odd notes; some of the poems are too abstract for my tastes, but others startled me with their precision.
Only a few of them moved me. This was one, because it is so smart about the way girls worship each other, use and hurt each other, fail sometimes to get over each other.
Liebchen
I never was your
dear little thing
nagging, niggling
shadow right through
your brilliant career:
you were Judy D.
and Debbie Harry
in one, and outraged when
I said so, you were
there on the day
we started Year One, me glum
and dark as a pudding
you in your chopped straw
bowl-cut, six summers of
strands green at the end
from too much
swimming
skinned knees and
Brownies
right through to high school
diminished and neutered
I worshipped you -
Liebchen,
you called me, with sarcasm,
or only
my surname
you were lead in the musical
you were the girl
a future film star fell for
and you spurned him
inner thighs bald from a life
on horseback
breasts fine and light as
new pears
you were one of those girls
from the right
side of town, and when we went
to the costume dance
you let me go with you
cowgirl and Indian
odd couple that wasn't
when I beat you at French
your only second
you swore I cheated
when you kissed Bob Green
from the school play
I was humiliated
on your behalf
though he did
use the word 'impart'
correctly
and that impressed me
you belong to a lost list
of girls who disappeared
that is to say
who never needed me
except for killing time
making up numbers
or having an audience
a way to rehearse
the real thing, like blowing
on milk bottles
before the flute lesson
and because of this
you have entered me
more sharply
than the keenest note
you have not
grown up, you have lodged
there and work your magical
infection through every
vein, dear little thing
Liebchen.
- Tracy Ryan
from Hothouse