Sherry Chandler

More on the I/Eye

Although I struggle with the idea of a “poetry of witness” and/or confessional poetry, I don’t see use of the “I” in poetry as much of a problem. I figure a poem has a point of view that is more or less mine, an observer that is more or less me, whatever way I use pronouns. Self-consciously avoiding “I” isn’t so much a challenge as a hobble.

Still the question is debated in poetry groups I inhabited and periodicals I read, so I find myself more or less forced to consider it and so am drawn to aphoristic pronouncements about it, such as this one I share with you today:

The autobiographical gesture negotiates between self and subject; that is, the poet is never just a unique person speaking honestly about her individual life, but rather, someone subject to social codes such as class, race, nationality, and gender. Morevoer, because the poet uses language, which is also subject to these codes, saying “I” is doubly vexed. No self is primary, untouched by culture — and poets acknowledge this to varying degrees.

— from Natasha Sajé, “Dynamic Design: The Structure of Books of Poems” in The Iowa Review, Fall 2005.

Speaking of point of view, I have spent the last week with mine considerably impaired. My routine cataract lens replacement got complicated by a small benign cyst on my iris. Short version is that attempts to avoid the cyst failed and it bled and shed pigment into my pupil, so that I was essentially blinded in that eye for several days. Disturbing and tiresome, even though one knows it’s temporary. Disappointing when the expected “I can see!” is transformed to “Oh my God, I’m blind!”

My regimen of eye drops has been a full-time job: steroids for the inflammation, glaucoma-type meds to counteract the pressure build-up caused by the steroids, antibiotics. I think this is the most medical attention I’ve ever required in my 61 years, including postnatal care after giving birth to unexpected twins. I’ve been a slave to the clock, having to plan any activities around the drug regimen. Any of my readers who have to do this kind of thing regularly have my deep sympathy. It’s very difficult to always have to be so self-aware.

Being a metaphor maker, I have thought of this experience as first, looking through the windshield of one of those big-ass mudsling trucks, then as looking through a turbulent surf filled with seaweed and sand (the stuff floats around in the eye fluid, hence floaters I suppose), and now finally as looking out on the world through one of those dainty black hat veils such as femme fatales used to wear in 1930s noir movies.

Even so, I don’t have much impulse to try to make a poem of any of it. A week spent staring at the inside of my own eye has not been all that inspiring. I did see (ahem) a small private irony in getting a comment this week from my favorite visual poet, Geof Huth. As a visual experience, Geof, this is the pits except that I do have a much more viseral grasp of how binocular vision works: spots before one eye = spots across most of the field of vision.

As of yesterday afternoon, my eye began to feel somewhat normal in its socket and I began to get glimpses of the improvement I was promised. Best, it no longer hurts to spend more than ten minutes or so reading a book or looking a a computer screen. So I think I’m back in business.

Thanks to Poppysmatus for pinch hitting. My hit numbers have actually gone up this week. I may need to think about that.

Possibly related posts:

Let’s talk about poetry

VisPo at YouTube

after Basho

Blogging as an art form

Songs of Experience?

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