“What She Had Wanted (A Pantoum)”
What She Had Wanted (a pantoum)
When it all came down to it,
it wasn’t her father
gave up the baby, who’d spit
at fate and daughter.
It wasn’t her father
left alone now, the shit
of fate and daughter
of misfortune, who’d sit
(left alone) in the shit
of should-have-been, the fodder
of missed fortune; who’d sit
hard, when the hook caught her
of “should.” Had been fodder
for him, sure. Her cheek hurt
hard when the hook caught her,
connected all her fresh with dirt.
(For him, sure, her cheek.) Hurt
even with that fist so far away
(connected not with fresh, but dirt);
still squeezed her full breasts’ sway
even with that fist. So far away,
seemingly– what she had vaunted
squeezed still. Full breasts weigh
upon her shoulders–all she had wanted,
seemingly. While what she had vaunted
gave up the baby, who’d spit
upon her shoulder–all that she had wanted,
when it came down to it.
What She Had Wanted (a Pantoum)
***************************************************
Agh! I wrote the above draft poem for dVerse Poets Pub “form for all” challenge posted by the wonderfully accomplished sonneteer Samuel Peralta (a/k/a Semaphore) . The challenge is to write a pantoum, a complicated form with interlocking repeated lines (and rhymes). I’ve posted others; and a brief article on them here (with one of my first ones.)
I am also linking this poem to With Real Toads for their open link night. For Real Toads, I added an audio recording (not so great) but I think a reading illuminates a poem like this since the pauses are taken in odd places. In the light, note that all the pauses are based on punctuation and not line breaks. (I’m a great believer in punctuation especially for things like pantoums, where it can be used to make changes in the repeated lines.)
The wonderful picture is of a light sculpture by Jason Martin of a heart in a box (tinfoil/cardboard).
Explore posts in the same categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: father/daugher/lost child, giving up a child, giving up the ghost, Heart in a box, http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com, Jason Martin light sculpture, manicddaily, pantoum about loss, What she had wanted
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ManicDDaily 
August 3, 2012 at 12:32 am
oh dang..tight write k. ..brought tears to my eyes…felt loss..and the run-on lines work well with the topic
August 3, 2012 at 1:09 am
Some powerful emotions here
August 3, 2012 at 5:28 am
ouch….you got a full story going in this one…loves of emotion as well…the fist, the hook, the loss of the baby….ugh…all runs together in a rather sad story esp in light of it being all she really wanted….
August 3, 2012 at 5:48 am
I think this is so clever, you meet all the demands of the pantoum and yet manage rhythms as relaxed and free as if there were no constraints on your writing at all. Remarkable.
August 3, 2012 at 5:53 am
I am really impressed with the serious subject you tackled with the pantoum; and I could FEEL her angst!
August 3, 2012 at 5:53 am
Felt the angst and loss here K ~ The cheeks hurting and misfortune ~ Thanks for the note on punctuation as well ~
August 3, 2012 at 6:49 am
I’m a bit of a punctuation freak myself! I agonize over the role of punctuation in my poems, and will re-do an entire blog page if I come upon an errant comma or period that I didn’t mean. This execution of the pantoum, however, is near-flawless, with its interlocking themes of doubt and sadness, the relationships between the woman, man and child all coming in and out of focus with each quatrain. Well done.
August 3, 2012 at 7:50 am
I agree about punctuation, although I’ve gotten lax with it. Great pantoum!
August 3, 2012 at 12:52 pm
Heartbreaking and fabulous. I like how you handled the punctuation question. I also hold punctuation important and couldn’t figure out how to keep lines the same with the varying meaning as they got carried forward. You changed the punctuation- of course!
August 3, 2012 at 2:06 pm
I love your punctuation and how you tweaked the repeating lines with a little puctuation so that they were the same, but different. I knew from the first line that I was going to like this one until the last.For me one of the keys to a good pantoum is a great opening and closing line. Peace, Linda
August 3, 2012 at 2:36 pm
Thanks so much, Linda. k.
August 3, 2012 at 2:57 pm
A compelling read for sure ~ sinister ~ evocative ~ memorable
August 3, 2012 at 3:03 pm
Thanks, Polly. k.
August 3, 2012 at 4:29 pm
Painfully direct, words like rolled rocks tumbling repeatedly on a sore place.
August 3, 2012 at 6:59 pm
Yes, I don’t know exactly what got into me. I was looking for some lines and went to an old nanowrimo manuscript and picked something up, then just went on with that, searching for rhymes and possible repetitions. k.
August 3, 2012 at 11:13 pm
“….connected all her fresh with dirt.”….oh, gosh, a lot of pain in this one…those full breasts and empty arms…sad scenario..
August 4, 2012 at 9:24 am
the contrast between how easily this reads and how uneasy the subject matter is mind blowing. “connected all her fresh with dirt” is a favorite phrase here. this is a powerful and deeply evocative poem for me, however brutal.
August 4, 2012 at 10:12 am
Thanks so much, Jane.
August 4, 2012 at 10:18 am
I wonder now whether it shouldn’t be flesh rather than fresh but that feels too obvious and limite somehow, and I like the idea of fresh as in freshness but also “fresh” like sass or cheek. So think fresh makes the cheek clearer and that the flesh is implied anyway. K.
August 6, 2012 at 12:50 pm
Aww…sadness all round in this one. A lost mother, handing over a soon to be lost, child. So sad.
August 7, 2012 at 1:27 am
I read, I listened, I read and listened, and I have tears in my eyes though I am not certain I know why or know what she had wanted. Did she even know, in the wake of such abuse. That is how I feel the repetition, so matter-of-fact in your voice, which is how it becomes. Did she save the child from this life, since
“When it all came down to it,
it wasn’t her father
gave up the baby, who’d spit
at fate and daughter.”
Oh K, I weep at times for women as mothers and as daughters and at other times I think it the greatest miracle of love. After all, it is mother and son in pictures everywhere, with no models for all of he little sisters.
August 8, 2012 at 6:46 am
Susan, thanks so much for your very kind comment. k.
August 7, 2012 at 12:48 pm
The clever way you have manipulated the repeated lines makes of this a powerful poem. A plain pantoum can be really trite. This one is the opposite.
August 7, 2012 at 8:30 pm
Dang, girl. This is good and gritty.
I love these lines:
“the fodder
of missed fortune”
“who’d sit
hard, when the hook caught her”
“Her cheek hurt
hard when the hook caught her,
connected all her fresh with dirt.”
I get that she had to give up her baby, was kind of forced to and maybe kind of wanted to. But the creepy part of my brain is wondering if her father is also the father of her baby. He’s obviously beating her, but is he also raping her?