Thursday, December 15, 2011

Week 13

C.D. Wright's "One With Others [I take one more drive across town thinking]" is, I think, elliptical. Again, I find the term confusing, but pretty much when I come across a poem that seems purposefully confusing I automatically connect it to the term. Mutual confusion is the connecting thread, apparently. Well, this particular poem begins in a fairly straightforward way. The speaker goes for a drive and let's us into her thoughts momentarily, because you know when you drive your thoughts run rampant. Well, it starts simple enough, but then it starts to veer. The poem alludes to segregation, but then there's all of this stuff about V and I really don't think I know what she's getting at.

       I attach V to my driving-around thoughts.           An object unworthy of love she thought she was.            It was a cri de coeur.            Those of our get had given her a nom de guerre: V.
This is where it stops making sense, which I suppose means is when it starts being elliptical. It's like she's referencing something that's an inside joke for her and her friends, expecting us to get it, but knowing that we can't. I mean, what is V? Am I missing something? I don't think this whole elliptical thing is really to my liking...

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