Height my constant companion, Cheng to my Eng. It is my wife, my work, my home. The one familiar in these stuffy cities, so alien and greasy with privilege, where coins slide too easily out of pockets and into frippery, petty entertainments. (How can the hulk of a man be worth a whole dime? Papa had to work for one until his legs quavered, jaw too weary to chew his skimpy supper. I make my living on God’s back.)
This body my glory and shame. Cross and salvation.
I could lop off my foot at the instep and never squeeze into a standard shoe, never take a staircase without turning sideways. Grind down my shoulders and I’d still clip both door jambs.
But, even days I dream of being skinned of my burden like a buffalo, I lean on it with the full beast of my weight. Savour the luscious odyssey made by a slow swallow of whiskey down and down my long throat.
5 comments:
Wondered about "Cheng to my Eng"--would he know this reference? I also thought you didn't need "so alien" as you show us how alien that world is to him so well without having to spell it out.
Loved "greasy with privilege" and the entire third stanza. Really was drawn to the buffalo hide image. Wondered if in the last line you could find something more evocative than "long" in "long throat"?
Kerry the same thing stopped me (cheng to eng) - I mean I did just interview an almost 100 yo woman who was told she was Swedish all her life and is Métis & Chinese but she is the only one of her kind I've met so far.
Don't get me wrong -it's very GOOD, BETTER than good - but feels like it's not our Eddy and... I think you find your way much closer to his voice when you are in the brackets in that first stanza. (although a Métis man, now or 100 years ago, would never use a word like skimpy, not the ones I knnow. Unless it was a lingerie reference in private.)
Depending on what you're going for (and I have a few ideas I'll email you)...
overall, when you rework your Ed material, write in the brackets which will be a challenge but - not really. not for you - it's nothing you're not up to.
Get out a Cree dictionary (or comrade) who can translate Cree words for you literally, even just a few and I swear it'll be a revelation to how to approach this with a new worldview. (in Michif, Cree - which E also spoke on its own - forms a basis for a lot of the verbs)
It's the most poetic language you can imagine, informed by the geographical space we inhabit on the prairies - just as an example, our plain jane English "July" is in Cree a bigass long word which means, literally more or less (so hard to get literal in English which is so...vague & diverse) "the moon time in which the animals moult their winter coats/skins".
Or like the Cree word for prayer is literally "complain to the Creator". It's got humour and worldview built right in.
everyone would be a poet if they just learned a bit of Cree, I tell ya.
anyway stanza 2, BIG yes. Catholic imagery, you CANNOT overuse for him.
3: he wouldn't say lop, he'd say chop or ____. but poetically lop is a better choice, so I'm bamboozled - depends what you want, poetry or authenticity so I hesitate to give advice on voice and word choice. Clip, again, is an anglo word. And sometimes these word choices also feel feminine even though we don't have gender (officially) in this language. In E's world, very much all/most of the languages did.
4. YEH YEH YEH this is the stuff. "being skinned of my burden like a buffalo" is voice AND poetry "the full beast of my weight" and "slow swallow of whiskey". BIG YES
lean, luscious, long, and odyssey less so.
Is this helpful, or not so much? Sorry to go on. I'm writing essays to poems, and it is b/c of my enthusiasm. Also the fact I type faster than I think (esp now, there's nothing left of me but reflex these days)
Thanks to you both. And Andie, yes, totally helpful!
I'm playing around with E's voice quite a bit. Torn between trying to be true to how he might actually have sounded based on his education and background, and inventing a new voice for him.
Invent a new voice! This is poetry, not historical fiction. Play, have fun. I like what you've been doing so far and I'd hate to see yourself hamstrung by history.
I wonder about the height comparisons in the first stanza... really, the Chang and Eng idea comes closest because it's something he can never be separate from, unlike a wife or home. But because of that, I'm not sure "companion" really works.
Stanza 2 is excellent, very effective coming after the stuff in parentheses.
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