Yes, the title was a shameless stretch compliments of my favorite thesaurus. I couldn't find a nice alliterative pairing for "conclusions" so I stuffed "cessation" into the slot like that puzzle piece you angrily mash into place because you just can't seem to get any of the others to make sense. So there, I admit I'm too lazy to come up with something more clever.
I just got through reading this poem by Kim Addonizio and the transition into the last stanza struck me. My first read through, I'd gotten bored at about the "they say they don't miss you but show up in your dreams" marker. My attention was totally gone by the time she was saying something about headlights or whatever. But then it came back when I noticed that she was droning on about trucks on the highway and warehouses. I was instantly irritated. Why was it necessary to go off on some odd tangent about traffic? Poets do that shit all the time. They have this whole nice poem with one cohesive theme or symbol or what have you, then they get to the end and go, "Oh. This is the part where I should introduce a completely irrelevant symbol and conclude everything vaguely." So I had my little tantrum and got mad at all the stupid poets who think they're being artsy and ambiguous. Then I read the poem again.
There's a good chance that the trucks were representative of a girl moving from boyfriend to boyfriend, "following the familiar routes of [her] lonliness." See boys and girls? That's why you should always read a poem twice. But that's not the point I want to get to. It's a nice poem and all. I take back all my venomous curses against Kim Addonizio and the other poets that fell victim to my ire. But there was some validity to my rage. Not that I had a right to be angry at anyone else, but I think I was reacting to my own fear of endings.
As a writer, I hate concluding anything I touch. I've mentioned in several of my posts that I usually just abruptly decide I've made enough of a point and proceed to hurtle towards whatever half-decent emergency exit I can throw together. My conclusions are blunt and unintelligent and (wince) vague. I think a lot of it comes from boredom.
The end,
- Sad Blogger
Episode 2 - A Bucket of Beeps
11 years ago