All Electrons Are (Not) Alike
Rosmarie Waldrop
Rosmarie Waldrop's poem "All Electrons Are (Not) Alike" is a 4 star poem. I rank on a 5 star scale depending on varying factors. Poems can earn stars for puns, meter, clever imagery, content, or just a line that makes me swoon with literary love. 4 stars are definitely noteworthy and this piece deserves its rank for a slew of little reasons and one or two bigger ones. The content is interesting, and offered a treasure trove of references to research, like good Irish literature. In nearly every numbered section we learn something about early explorers or the poet's father. Of course you read my blog description (right?) so you may guess from the quotation within (and in case you hadn’t guessed it); I’m fond of patriarchal wisdom. I particularly enjoyed the poet’s tidbits about her father’s little worries (e.g. he was “afraid that an overload of simultaneous neural firings would result in an epileptic convulsion”). They made the poem more real, more than just historical, but personally relevant to the author as well.
In each section, there is always some reference to a central miss-understanding or miss-communication in the narrative. There is a reference to the tower of Babel, and references to conquerors who “passed through many and dissimilar tongues,” but do not understand [the native] language yet.”
The poem has some really amazing lines in it. One of my favorite lines is “Yet when an object has never been seen back home what good is a word? You have to bring the thing itself and empty your bag to make conversation.” It captures the same essence as some of the other language metaphors. They are defining the conqueror’s mentality when he discovers distant lands and brings back the treasures, the Gold, the Glory, and for God. Section 5 seems to reference the first two of these three G’s, and God appears in the 7thsection as Columbus is compared to Adam naming the animals, given that power by the Lord.
"A view of the sea is the beginning of the journey," this line is wonderful too. An opening about beginnings and in the next few lines the poem’s central issue is addressed as a "profusion of languages out of the blue,” (blue presumably being the ocean). The line is followed by a slew of alliteration “bluster, blur, blubber,” all B’s like blue and “my father was troubled by inklings of Babel and multiplication on his table." Babel ends the alliteration and picks up on table with an internal slant rhyme. The whole poem sings; a collage of poetic effects. A rhyme ends just as a strong meter picks up, then meter fades, but a play on words appears, and then alliteration, and so on in never-ending line.
My favorite example of this, by far, is in section 8. The line reads, “Diaphragm, frenzy, frantic, phrenology (discredited), and schizophrenia.” When Waldrop switched the spelling of her “frens” to “phrens” I wanted to burst with excitement. How fresh! I didn’t expect it nor had I ever encountered such an intriguing play on syllabic variations (at least none that spring to mind). Not that it’s a terribly important line in relation to the rest of the poem, but wow was it clever! I kept repeating it in my head all day. A second irrelevant reason I liked this poem was its reference to Nohoch Mul, the “140 step pyramid” which stands in a Mayan site in southern Mexico known as Cobá. Yeah, I took an ancient Mayan History course.
Though I would call it poetic prose rather than pure poetry (it’s liquid and fills the page), I enjoyed it immensely so I’ve set aside my doubts about the designation. It is rather disjointed syntactically, with sudden jumps in the narrative and short clauses treated as complete sentence even when they have no business parading as full thoughts. However the poem’s train of thought carries several themes throughout, namely, the idea of language as an imperfect tool. Impeded communication between speakers and non-speakers translates into a struggle for understanding. The affect of confusion and need for clarification is amplified by the chaos of the previously noted syntax and the subtly complex references to historic events and people, things you either know or don’t know (and then spend an hour looking up).
This poem is so packed full of clever lines that I’m quite convinced I could sit with it for hours on end and still find more interesting nuances in the text. Woldrop’s work is educated and deep, reminding me a little of some of the Bishop Poems we read for class the other day. It’s a long piece and I may have mentioned my sloth-like tendencies in a past post, so ironically this was the last poem I expected to pick and I’ve ended up in love with it.
