Brian's poetry exp

           Visitation
     
          -Kathy Fagan-
           
            An hour before dusk on a Tuesday, mid-November— (she sets a time)

            sunstruck clouds with winter in them

            beeches, sycamores, white with it too.

            Blue sky.  Also

            an aroma of blue

            sky, bell-clear, hard as a river

in your lungs, which is why you’re

breathless again, grateful,    (This is all the things in life we take for granted)

as if it were the banks of the Siene         (Siene a large canal in Paris)

you strolled on and not

the mastodon back of the Midwest,

gray, unraiseable thing like a childhood

slept through, and past.                               (to be forgotten)

On the horizon now a kind of golden

gate of sunset.  To visit

means to both comfort and afflict,              ( a feeling of release, but also pain)

though neither last long.

That charm of finches lifting from a ditch

can surprise you with a sound like

horselips, and paddle towards the trees

beautifully, small,

brown, forgettable as seeds,

but they, too, must sing on earth unto the bitter death— ( all things must chnge life is a cycle)

I have personally had the honor of meeting the author of this poem on the Marion campus.  Kathy is a member of the main campus faculty, and one of the reasons I would like to attend main campus as a grad student. Visitation, Kathy Fagan’s poem, is similar to several of her other pieces - it’s detailed and paints a vivid picture for the reader.  She is able to set a time and environment for the reader, and at the same time open the readers eyes to things in life that we take for granted.  She is able to observe to the smallest details and express them in a larger light.   The descriptive nature of the poem allows the reader to quickly go through the step–by-step process of death.  She is able to express the sadness of life, but in the same breath express the beauty as well.    

Her use of enjambment is well placed, and makes the piece stand out even more.  She is able to control rhythm - each section of the piece develops and then slowly dissolves.  I feel that Hugo would find Kathy’s writing style refreshing, she truly writes for herself, but finds ways of making dark moments surreal and speaks to the reader.  The syntax and word choice allow the reader to experience the concept that all things must come to an end, yet embraces the idea of to transition in peace and to accept the fate which awaits you.

            Kathy gothic poet style extends further then just a restrained box.  She intertwines lines like “an aroma of blue”,” sky, bell-clear, hard as a river” allowing the reader to be a part the environment making the setting a personification.  Then using lines such as, “means to both comfort and afflict”; the mix of dark and relaxing plays with the readers’ emotion, but uses words to make it seem majestic.

She is a dark writer that uses structure and tools to establish a solid piece.  The use of a twenty three-line stanza allows the piece to flow well.  Kathy could have used stanzas to separate rather then punctuation, but like life it came and went with little delay.   This poem is a metaphor to life, its complex surroundings, and its brutal but peaceful end.