The title poem, dedicated to her motorcycle betrayer, the mechanic of Smudging, reiterates past injustices and betrayals, but the speaker is more assured than vengeful. But, no mind, because Wakoski has always stuck hard to her own beliefs and constructions and continues to write a poetry dazzlingly and maddeningly her own, regardless of what history and fashion wants to do with her, because history and fashion will do what it will. Like a happy child on that shining afternoon/ in the palmtree sunset her mothers trunk yielding treasures,/ I cry and/ cry,/ Father,/ Father,/ Father,/ have you really come home?. The opening lines of the poem, The sense of disguise is a/ rattlesnake, suggest the poses and masks, even the genders, she and the lover-sheriff put on and discard as he fails her: oh yes you are putting on your skin-diving suit very fast running to the/ ocean and slipping away from this girl who carries a loaded gun. The roles are reversed as she assigns herself the potency he lacks: His gun wanders into/ hand, while her phallic gun is constantly with her. I am a part of it. In The George Washington Poems, dedicated to her father and her husband, Wakoski continues to debunk the American hero, this time taking on the father of my country (a title that is given to one of the poems), the patriarchal political and militaristic establishment. The last poem in the volume, A Poem for My Thirty-second Birthday, provides a capsule summary of the speakers images, themes, and relationships. Enough is also a pronoun . Contributor to "Burning Deck Post Cards: The Third Ten," Burning Deck Press, and to periodicals. The Egyptian goddess-creator, who is simultaneously mother and virgin, appears as the symbolic object of male fear: the veiled woman, Isis mother, whom they fear to be greater than all else. Men prefer the surface, whether it be a womans body or the eagle ice sculpture that melts in the punch bowl at a cocktail party; men fear what lies beneath the surfacethe woman, the animain their nature. She loves her lover but wants to be alone, desires intimacy (wants to be in your wrist, a pulse) but does not want to be in your house, a possession. Now some might say, it's alright, just move on, but Enough is Enough. Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's Dictionary. For, to do so,I would have to wake upyoung again. it makes me want to scream and shout and let this beast of confusion out. "Just enough" are the virtues that can't turn back the clock to a given day, more hallow with all the words; Confusing the desires of a future free from denial in every possible way. Longtime readers of Wakoski will recognize all the residents of her myth the Motorcycle Betrayer, George Washington, and now, in Bay of Angels, The Shadow Boy (more on him later). Arizona Poetry is reflective of how we became who we are, and how we look at where we are going. Here it is, courtesy, Lynette. Like a Metaphysical poet, Wakoski suggests that the universe can be coalesced into their bodies (our earlobes and eyelids) as they hold live coals/ of commitment,/ of purpose,/ of love. This positive image, however, is undercut by the final image, the power of fish/ living in strange waters, which implies that such a union may be possible only in a different world. Inside the Blood Factory also introduces another of Wakoskis recurring images, the moon, developed more extensively later in The Moon Has a Complicated Geography and The Magellanic Clouds. In Bay of Angels, Diane Wakoskis 23rd and most recent collection of poems, she continues with her career-long tropes and obsessions: love and betrayal, strong male figures and absent male figures, beauty and its shame-faced opposite. The world needs justice, We don't need malice. In The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems, betrayal, always a theme in Wakoskis poetry, becomes the central focus; the motorcycle mechanic represents all the men who have betrayed her. The book closes with a section entitled, The Lady of Light Meets the Shadow Boy in which Wakoski writes I invented another hero recently She is speaking of a hockey player character newly appearing in her poems, but she could just as easily be speaking of the real-life Dickman. In the course of the poem, she associates a mechanic with a Doberman that bites, and then she becomes, in her anger, the Doberman as she seeks revenge on a lover who makes her happy while he destroys her with possessive eyes that penetrate the fences she has erected. it's confusing and scary and I'm scared like a cat when it sees a cucumber. She said, "Daddy, our life together has been more than enough. Lance Armstrong. She preaches it with the zeal of, well, a preacher. Tran Myhre gives us a chance to excavate a lovingly realized bygone world of heroes, thinkers, and poets struggling with the nature of art, justice, and humanity. In fact, Wakoski uses chants, as in Chants/Chance, to allow for different speakers within the poem. I looked them up and found that each of them had gone on to a career in poetry, but in the kind of obscurity in which so many 20th-century female poets existed. Toward a New Poetry. American poets celebrate their bodies, very specifically, as Whitman did. Her many collections of poetry include series stretching across multiple books, such as The Archeology of Books and Movies, whose titles include Medea the Sorceress (1991), Jason the Sailor (1993), The Emerald City of Las Vegas (1995), and Argonaut Rose (1998). Graphic novelists let loose in our archive. Stealing the Language: The Emergence of Womens Poetry in America. In The Queen of Night Walks Her Thin Dog, the speaker uses poetry, the singing that recurs in Whitmanesque lines, to penetrate the various veils that would separate her from houses, perhaps bodies, in the night. While she wryly admits that she is the pink dress, she at times would like to reverse the roles; she is also aware, however, that the male roles do not satisfy her needs, do not mesh with her sexual identity. In The Father of My Country, Wakoski demonstrates both the extraordinary versatility of the George Washington figure and the way repetition, music, and digression provide structure. I wish it didn't hurt as much as it does, but no matter What i do, i still feel the constant pain, in my heart. I Wish You Enough (I Wish You Enough Poem) At an airport I overheard a father and daughter in their last moments together. (If you disagree, look at the poem) What society infers Why society is wrong - How you look (physically) doesn't determine who you are - Something artificial you apply to your face doesn't make you any different - Your clothes are your choice - Inappropriate and dirty acts won't get you anywhere but in trouble And, frankly, invisibility is just the harsh reality of women in the canon. Popularity of "Justice": Justice is written by Rita Joe, a respected poet and songwriter. FOR MORE THAN TWO DECADES, a Monday has rarely passed where I havent thought of Blue Monday, Diane Wakoskis bleak, beautiful, incantatory masterwork: Blue of the heaps of beads poured into her breastsand clacking together in her elbows;blue of the silkthat covers lily-town at night;blue of her teeththat bite cold toastand shatter on the streets;blue of the dyed flower petals with gold stamenshanging like tonguesover the fence of her dressat the opera/opals clasped under her lipsand the moon breaking over her head agush of blood-red lizards . Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Sometimes, the title of a poem is enough. 4 God Created Mankind In His Own Image - Genesis 1:27. Many of the poems in this last section begin with a letter to Dickman, and give him, and the reader, the background of the poem. You have long enough let this conflict unfurl. Life slows down. Although Wakoskis brother (from Justice is Reason Enough) is invented and Dickmans was a real person, the connection speaks loudly to Wakoski (Of course I always look for patterns, connections.), and she writes some of the strongest work in the book based on this shared grief. The Magellanic Clouds looks back at earlier volumes in its reworking of George Washington and the moon figures, but it also looks ahead to the motorcycle betrayal figure and the King of Spain. A controversy of poets; an anthology . To begin with, she has often been in the thrall of the male figure she cites her influences as male poets almost exclusively: Stevens, Williams, Koch, and OHara among many others. enough. We've collected a few powerful poems about justice, and each one will make you see things in a new light and may even inspire you to take action. There are two parts of the speaker, the part that searches for the warmth of the smudge pot and the part of me that takes your hand confidently. That is, the speaker both believes that she has the warmth and fears that she lacks it. Justice Quotes in Trifles. Today I thought I'd re-share a poem that's struck a chord with a lot of people: the "I Am Enough" poem. Inside the Blood Factory, Wakoskis next major poetic work, also concerns George Washington and her absentee father, but in this volume, her range of subject matter is much wider. Im not just talking about the subject matter, although poems from a womans perspective honest, unflinching (never self-pitying) poems about sex and love, beauty and (more radical) ugliness, hurt and survival, self-loathing, class, California all spoke to me hard. Wakoski has long been clear that the twin brother she refers to in the poem is imaginary, a character, a stand-in for how we wrestle with ourselves. Justice Langston Hughes - 1901-1967 That Justice is a blind goddess Is a thing to which we black are wise: Her bandage hides two festering sores That once perhaps were eyes This poem is in the public domain. It is remarkable enough to find sonnets, villanelles, couplets, and sestina coexisting in the same volume as surreal odes and aleatory "sonatinas"not to mention poems based on blues lyrics and nursery rhymes. Here, too, there is less emphasis on the masculine sun imagery, though it appears, and more of a celebration of the moon imagery. 10. Whether it's Fathers Day or any time of year, here are poems about all types of dads. And, as Wakoski wrote as her biographical note for many of her earlier books: The poems in her published books give all the important information about her life.. The tone is at times humorous, so much so that the poems may not be taken seriously enough, but there is also a sense of desperation. And reasons though their number small Just one or two will do To get that melody to escape me The poem, despite the repetition of fall apart, ends with her certainty that just as I would never fall apart,/ I would also never jump out of a window. In the other poem, the speaker begins with familiar lamentations about her sad childhood and turns to genes and the idea of repeating a parents failures. Temperature about to fall. The fear of the laborers outside the house, the memory of the absentee fathershe has left these behind as she finds love and warmth with her mechanic lover, whose warmth is suspect, however, because he threw me out once/ for a whole year. Mechanically expert, he does not understand or appreciate her running parts and remains, despite their reunion, the voices in those dark nights of her childhood.