POPULAR MECHANICS

Popular Mechanics got me a little confused due to the fact that I could not figure out what the poet, Edward Nobles, was trying to say. It was not until I read it over three more times to understand what he was trying to explain. Although he was giving specific details, I could not get a hold of what this poem was about.

At first, the description he was giving was making it seem like Edward was just having deep thoughts within himself. Almost as if there was nothing else to do and was just bored. The description I got from him was that he was on the floor, really low to see under the dresser just enough to where he could see his own magazines. When a person is bored they have the tendency to find anything in the room interesting or anywhere that they are at. As he looks at the floor he notices the measure and length of the floor board, they are exact.

He describes seeing “The small clouds of dust accumulate beneath the bed.” (EdwardNobles121) Collecting dust bunnies is what he sees. He is viewing things as observational, visual phenomenal and does not think much about it. Yet as he gets into more details of removing undergarments, I quote got sidetracked because I was not expecting to get this out of this poem. “I pull her panties to the floor…the cloth is blue-I remember it-white cotton on the inner pouch.” (EdwardNobles121) At this point I get the idea that he may not be bored after all, but may be having some kind of intimacy with a woman.

I was not sure what he was trying to tell us, all the descriptions that were being given further into the poem like, “The elastic band contorts and expands. The cloth is soft.” (EdwardNobles12) Maybe I was not paying much attention to what he was trying to get across but I wondered if that was a description of her underwear as well or was It just something he was imagining in his head or these thoughts of words were running through his mind.   At the end of the poem it comes clearer and I was able to understand that he is in the middle of intercourse, “I hold tight, then begin to slide-slowly, not moving, up-ward, outward, into space.” (EdwardNobles122). Because he is being intimacy and passionate in that kind of moment, most people remember things and pay closer of attention to the things around them, almost as if there was a sudden stop in time, they are able to give specific details because of this.

I understood that part of the poem, but it lost me again at the very last paragraph. “I hesitate a few years at an iron leg, then move on, wondering at the blackness, the exactness of the measured line.” (EdwardNobles122).  It just all went from giving me an the idea of intimacy which was happening in real life to maybe just imagining it all in his head. My thoughts to this was, what if he did get bored and was just staring while lying on the floor and gave himself this imagery of intimacy and passionate in his mind. Sometimes the mind can wonder off on its own and it has the power to create these thoughts making one feel like they are In the moment.

"Slowy" > "Painting a Room"

The poem “Slowly” by Donna Masini and “Painting a Room” by Katie Kapovich are the poems I chose to write about. In the poem “Slowly” as a child in the fourth grade, she took a trip to the Zoo and was describing what she was seeing behind a glass. She had seen a rabbit being swallowed by a snake as she stood in front of this reptile. Donna describes, “..its head clenched in the wide jaws of the snake, the snake sucking it down its long throat.” (DonnaMasini138)  The watching of this, is a real life lesson to her she made it seem like. She is slowly taking it in to what it is that she is witnessing which is the loss of the rabbit’s life; therefor she is comparing it to what the losses she has lost such as loved ones. As you get older you understand that you cannot simply control what happens in life.

There is absolutely things in life that will grab you out of nowhere whether you like it or not, and it will take over and you will no longer have control of it, As well, she observed the way this snake swallowed the rabbit, she knows there is absolute no way this poor innocent animal would ever see the light ever again. Such as her past, the past stays behind and is never to be brought back up. She takes what was once done and lost in her past as the snake swallows the rabbit all as a whole. There is no stopping to what is chosen to happen in life, you just go with it. “I didn’t know why the snake didn’t choke, the rabbit never moved…sucking it down, just so I am taking this in, slowly.” (DonnaMasini139) For the loss of the Rabbit she is coping with her losses as well.

“Painting a Room” She is in the process of moving. But there are things that are drawing her back that is making her shed tears. The effort and changes she has made to the apartment she has been living in, no longer matter, she is moving countries. With a visa being expired, her time is up in the country she is recently in and is unable to do anything about this. As she shits back she acknowledges the turquoise frame and takes a look at the “Ten years of fears, unrequited loves, odd jobs, of night phone calls.” (KatieKapovich112) she is comparing that as if it was time being wasted there by doing all that or revolving her time as she was there for the past ten years.

Yet again she could not go back and change the time that was being wasted or done in the past just like Donna. What happened was already done, lessons were learned and regrets were made. In the case of these poems they are both reflecting off from the decisions they made that they are now regretting in the future. The last night Katie spends in her apartment she describes it as a “Freedom smells of a freshly painted room…” (KatieKapovich113) meaning after that night, she will no longer be able to live as she used to. Her visa expiration was taking hold of her changes being made in her life from now on.

Leanne O'Sullivan

 

            The poem “Waiting for My Clothes” by Leanne O’Sullivan, makes me wonder what is the actual reason she is there. The doctors are detaining her from all her belongings but yet they never actually tell her the purpose for the reasons they are doing this. The belongings that are being taken away are showing us or is describing that her books, clothes and music are obviously a part of her. But why is it that she is so possessive and worried that the doctors are removing these things? Is it that she has no one to talk as in friends? To my point of view she sees these things as company and feels empty without them.  And the only way to get these items back she explained was if she behaved in my understanding.

            As the doctors told her this, I came to think what the reason was to why she was not behaving. It seemed as if she had a mental disorder or was not behaving properly. The journal she spoke about was being described as if the doctors had removed her clothing, and from what I understood was like her life was in that journal.

            As her journal was being taken away she said, “taking my soul from between my ribs and leafing through the pages of my thoughts, as if they were reading my palms.” (o’sullivan17) Her privacy was being invaded by strangers. Her life was being read like an open book to others, the poem is being descried as “if they were reading palms.” (o’sullivan17) she had feelings as if these people saw her as something she was not.  Not recognizing who this person was, they were judging her. although she was being easily being judged, she did not reveal her true thoughts only left with questions being asked by others.