Stratgey Response, Week 5

What I found myself being particularly drawn to this week was the issue of subject in Writing Poetry’s chapter 11. What is really interesting and useful in helping remain committedly detached from one’s own work is channeling or filtering one subject through another subject. Looking at Ashley’s poem, Laundry, the common, every-day task of hang clothes out to dry becomes a vein for detailing a young girl’s first period. The subject of a girl “blooming” into a woman is an event that seems highly covered by other female poets (I am really thinking here of Rita Dove’s Adolescence II) and Ashley’s own way of exploring the topic captures the ordinary without making the moment overwrought or melodramatic. Mother and daughter discovering the period almost takes on the feeling of completing tasks or a checklist, just like doing daily chores. “Just like that,” the speaker becomes a woman. Even after finding the period the mother and daughter continue to pass each other laundry and clothespins. Keeping the language at a conversational level helps keep the subject of menstruation from becoming too fantastical, keeps the subject from pointing too much at itself. The subject of the poem may not even be the event of discovering a period, but the speaker’s nonchalance or apathy on the matter seems to take focus. The ennui is what becomes appealing after several read throughs of the poem. After reading this poem I started to think casually off the top of my head about events that may seem monumental and continued along a similar vein as the young female speaker’s concerns in Ashley’s piece: death of loved one, losing one’s virginity, a wedding, birth of a child, etc. Would this speaker, if her voice was carried on through a series of poems or a whole collection carry the same nonchalance towards other events? Would that be believable? While losing her virginity could she be eating a pear? When learning she is suddenly pregnant could she be polishing silver for a formal dinner party? Is she sweeping the kitchen floor hours before getting married? I like these odd pairings; they could potentially produce fresh narratives, images, juxtaposing sentiments, and help deflect otherwise “melodramatic” moments with the ordinary, mundane tasks that we all face every day.