13
Ways of Looking at Love
1. If
I called and asked, would you read me “13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”
simply because I wanted to hear it?
2. Would
you answer the phone, if I only wanted to hear your voice?
3. Let
me curl up in your lap and read “Tulips” because I want to share the beauty of
Sylvia Plath’s words with you? You questioned me, wondering how the happiest
person you know could connect to such a macabre poem.
4. Wait
for the crowded streetcar (in vain), then walk two hours so I can see the
Buckner Mansion? “That’s a long way to go
just to pretend you’re going to witch school.”
“I
know.”
5. Break
the diet you’ve been keeping up with for months in preparation for your first
MMA fight, because I wanted you to come to Putz’s with me? We can rationalize
Kit-Kat Cyclones by walking around the largest park in Cincinnati.
6. Pull
me to class on your skateboard, even if the strings keep breaking and passers-by
question us? I know it’s not the fastest way to get around, but it sure is nice
to feel like you’re on a carriage once in a while.
7. Think
of me every time you see a pink sunset? It’s my special way to telling you
where I am now—“Pretty sunset out by
Mammoth Cave” or “You can see the
pink clouds reflected across the bay in Seattle.” I see pink in the sky
everywhere I go, and I still feel like crying every time I see it.
8. Test
drive a Mitsubishi Mirage with me, because I want to drive a pink car? It doesn’t
matter if we can never afford it.
9. Let
me claw into your skin, lost in the bliss of warmth?
10. Feed
me my favorite chicken bits in gravy when I return home from hunting all day?
11. (Yes,
I am your Persian cat. But sometimes it helps to look at life through the
perspective of a creature whose only objectives are to catch chipmunks and get
cozy with you).
12. Read
the love letter I wrote you, even if I just yelled at you because I suck at
planning surprises? I thought you’d find it on top of your computer, ready to
write another song, but you took a shower instead. At least it replaces the
first letter I wrote—you kept it in your backpack until Sam threw up on it.
13. Never
let me go, no matter how much I yell or cry or simple minded by demands are.
As someone who has never read "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Blackbird", I was completely caught off guard by this post. After googling the initial piece, I made sense of the structure chosen for her response, "13 Ways of Looking at Love." What I found to be effective was how beautifully written it was, and how each numbered "way" would either be completely different or draw back to one before it.
ReplyDeleteShe used evidence in almost every line, whether it came from a person experience or compared to a poem, a photo, a car, or a type of creature that brings back these different memories she has with the person she loved. This was something I found to be effective in this piece, because experience is what leaves us with memories in the first place. And experiences in love leave us with memories that are sometimes more difficult yet easier to relive (her example of crying when she sees a pink sky).
Like the last piece I reviewed, (and maybe this is just me), I felt a lack of seeing where a color came into play. I assume it's love, but it wasn't even mentioned through a color-- just related to a poem that had the word "Blackbird" in it. Then again, I have a difficult time interpreting poetry, and maybe I should be looking deeper. Either way, I found this piece to be incredibly interesting-- even if I did have to read it a few times over again.
(Maybe that's the point).
You're right- the only way it relates to the colors is mentioning the blackbird poem. But in the other poem I mention, the tulips are red.
DeleteIt may seem a little confusing because the different ways are narratives of my relationship with different people- my dad, the brother, my boyfriend, one of my friends, and my cat. I tried to depict various forms of love from multiple perspectives (parent/child love, brother/sister love, the love between romantic partners, the love between pets and their humans, and friendship.