synergy – (noun) the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.
As I continue to study this text and mine for meaning in the words chosen by the author, I’m also understanding how the current movement lives in my own body. I must say that in learning the choreography for myself (the first two times I set the piece, I didn’t make the movement for me), I’m finding movement that a) doesn’t feel great/intuitive in my body, and b) doesn’t reflect the intuitive movement style that I’ve been exploring in my improvisational sessions, and c)doesn’t necessarily support the text or intent. I went into the studio this weekend to learn more about the movement. I also took a dive into the rest of the poem, which is annotated below:
I enter old places bearing your shape
Bear – (verb) carry the weight of; support
Bear – (verb) endure (and ordeal or difficulty)
Trapped behind the sharp smell of your anger
In a 2015 study, researchers determined that, “Behavioral results indicate that chemosignals of aggression induce an affective/cognitive modulation compatible with an anxiety reaction in the recipients.” I found this to be an interesting connection to this line, as I’m also thinking about the sensory description of the smell of anger.
And I hear the high pitch of your voice crawling out from my hearts deepest culverts
I wonder about how and why the lines are broken up the way they are. I also wonder why “hearts” has no apostrophe. Is this possessive?
Culvert – (noun) a tunnel carrying a stream or open drain under a road or railroad
Compromise is a coffin nail
According to Cambridge Dictionary, the final nail in the coffin refers to an event that causes the failure of something that had already started to fail
rusty as seaweed
BYJU’S learning website explains rust as the following: … rust is formed from a redox reaction between oxygen and iron in an environment containing water (such as air containing high levels of moisture). The rusting of iron is characterized by the formation of a layer of a red, flaky substance that easily crumbles into a powder.
Again, we see the water theme emerging here, as she talks about something that was doomed to fail from the start
tiding through an august house
Tide – (verb) drift with or as if with the tide
more water
August – (adjective) respected and impressive
My pathways are strewn with old discontents
Strewn – untidily scattered
Outgrown defenses still sturdy as firebrick
Firebrick – According to VICTAS (a global manufacturer of refractory materials), firebrick is a refractory ceramic material used in lining furnaces, kilns, fireboxes, and fireplaces. A refractory brick is designed mainly to withstand high heat…
***This is where the choreography in this solo begins***
To absolve me at any price
Absolve – (verb) set or declare (someone) free from blame, guilt, or responsibility
Becoming my mother draped in my fathers bastard ambition
I realize that there is no punctuation in the piece except for at the end of each stanza
Bastard – (adjective) (or a thing) no longer in its pure or original form; debased
Growing dark secrets out from between her thighs
“Dark secrets” speaks to something full of shame
“From between her thighs” – referencing something she has birthed or can birth; sexuality
And night comes into me like a fever
Night = in a Google search of what “night” can symbolize, some concepts that emerged included: death, darkness of the soul, loss of faith; vulnerability and danger for human physical survival; grief
Symbolism.org had this to say about night: Daytime is related to the masculine, active principle and to the conscious state within mankind. In contrast, nightime is related to the feminine, passive and unconscious principle. Hesiod called night “the mother of the gods” because the Greeks believed that night and darkness preceded the creation of all things. Hence night, like water, is expressive of fertility, potentiality and germination. It is an anticipatory state which promises the coming of day. As J.E. Cirlot notes in A Dictionary of Symbols, within “the tradition of symbology it has the same significance as death and the color black.”
Here, there’s a simultaneous presence of all three (self, mother, and father), acting independently, yet all influencing the author
While an arrogant woman masquerading as a fish
Arrogant – (adjective) having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or abilities
Masquerade – (verb) pretend to be someone one is not
Fish – PubMed.org describes the psychological meaning of the fish: The symbolic connotations of the fish and its reflection of unconscious processes are seen as mythological vehicles of liberation from sexual repression and concomitant social oppression.
Into the heart we both share like beggars
Imagining how beggars would share a valuable thing… perhaps they’re desperate for it
On this moment of time
I notice she says “on” instead of “in.” I wonder about this choice
Where the space ships land
I’m still thinking about this line. I’m not sure how to interpret it yet
I have died too many deaths that were not mine
This line alludes to the generational traumas that have informed her present reality/view of self
Here, she’s acknowledging that these “deaths” are not hers to bear and perhaps is taking back some power in denouncing them
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