Hello~ I am making a poetry discussion thread due to high demand (the high demand is from me)
Of possible interest to @AmandaB @sophia @kamineko @LapinLunaireGames but also anyone else!
We’ll pick poems and talk about them!! and then we’ll pick more!!
edit: We’re gonna try to focus on analyzing one poem per week (a week from the posting of each poem) also.
Here’s Complaint of Achilles’ Heel which I stumbled across recently and really like.
Reproduced for convenience:
Complaint of Achilles’ Heel
Everyone’s so quick to blame my
tenderness. My wound opening like a mouth
to kiss an arrow’s steel beak.
A beautiful man, now, plants his face
in Trojan sand while I tell
the secrets of his body—
make the ground red with truth.
Red with the death of Achilles, felled
by an arrow’s bite when nothing—
nothing—could puncture his Kevlar skin.
Everyone skips ahead to the moral: don’t
be a heel. For just one day I felt
sun where the chafing bonds of sandal
should have been. Without me, he’d be
just more fodder for the cannon.
I made him a hero, Troy’s poster
boy. Everyone forgets I was part of him,
I needed him—that even as he died,
I tasted each pulse—
that I could not hold back its rush of red
birds or the season to which they flew.
Thoughts
Making me compassionate for a foot is an impressive feat.
The language also evokes a sensual sadness, the kiss of an arrow’s “steel beak” echoing the “red birds” as Achilles bleeds out, tasting the pulse of Achilles and needing him, the secrets of his body. I really like the recurrence of red - I tend to avoid repeating words in my poetry and I really shouldn’t because it can be very powerful.
The “, now,” in “A beautiful man, now,” is so intriguing. Those commas! (Hamilton musical voice) “It changed the meaning / Did you intend it?” Does this relate to being Troy’s poster boy?