Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Fanny Howe’s "Everything’s a Fake" is a meditative and hallucinatory journey through the landscapes of Los Angeles, where nature, culture, and illusion blur into a singular, disorienting experience. The poem plays with notions of authenticity, desire, and perception, revealing a cityscape where everything seems performative, shifting, and unreal.

The opening lines set the tone of a wild yet encroached-upon natural world: "Coyote scruff in canyons off Mulholland Drive. Fragrance of sage and rosemary, now it’s spring." The contrast between the untamed "Coyote scruff" and the domestic, herbal scents of "sage and rosemary" immediately suggests a duality—the wilderness persists, but it is already framed within human terms. The invocation of "Mulholland Drive" further signals a cinematic backdrop, linking the poem to the illusory qualities of Hollywood, which will reappear later in the poem.

The nocturnal setting is filled with movement and warning—"mockingbirds ring their warnings of cats coming across the neighborhoods." The "castanets in the palms of a dancer" become the "palm trees clack," blending the organic with performance, as if even nature in Los Angeles must participate in a grand production. This interplay between natural sounds and artificial associations underscores the poem’s title: "Everything’s a Fake."

The Hollywood sign, an enduring symbol of artifice, is veiled—"The HOLLYWOOD sign has a white skin of fog across it." This description evokes a kind of theatrical disguise, a moment where the sign’s visibility—its ability to declare itself—is obscured. The fog’s sensuality is heightened by the description of the "erotic canyons," which "hump, moisten, slide, dry up, swell, and shift." This personification suggests an impatient, almost restless landscape, one that mimics human desire but operates independently of it.

The speaker moves through the city’s trails in a state of continuous observation—"She walks for days around brown trails, threading sometimes under the low branches of bay and acacia." The "bitter flowers" she notices—"pink and thin honeysuckle, or mock orange"—are significant not only for their aesthetic appeal but for their duplicity. "Mock orange," a plant that looks and smells like an orange blossom but produces no fruit, is emblematic of the poem’s theme of illusion—everything appears to be something it is not.

The reference to "Other deviant men and women" suggests the presence of those who live on society’s fringes, residing at the "base of these canyons, closer to the city however." This positioning hints at a liminal existence—between nature and urban sprawl, between authenticity and performance. The phrase "closer to the city however" implies that, despite their seeming distance, they are still entangled in the city’s energy.

The speaker’s physical sensations—"Her mouth is often dry, her chest tight"—suggest both the literal effects of walking in arid canyons and a deeper, existential discomfort. Yet, she is "filled to the brim with excess idolatry," an intriguing phrase that suggests an almost involuntary reverence for something artificial. In a city that thrives on spectacle and illusion, even her spiritual hunger is "excessive," overwhelming.

A shift occurs when she perceives Los Angeles from a new perspective—"It was like a flat mouse—the whole of Los Angeles she could hold in the circle formed by her thumb and forefinger." The city, a sprawling metropolis, is suddenly miniaturized, as if it is something that can be grasped, controlled, or dismissed. The odd simile—"like a flat mouse"—suggests something lifeless or pressed into two dimensions, reinforcing the idea that Los Angeles is an image more than a reality.

Her vision extends even further—"Tires were planted to stop the flow of mud at her feet. But she could see all the way to Long Beach through a tunnel made in her fist." The "tires," remnants of human intervention, are meant to control the unpredictable forces of erosion. Yet, her gaze bypasses them, reaching the ocean through a tunnel she constructs with her hand—a personal, subjective framing of reality. This moment emphasizes perception as an act of control, of defining what one sees and how one understands the world.

The closing lines—"Her quest for the perfect place was only a symptom of the same infection that was out there, a mild one, but a symptom nonetheless."—unveil the deeper malaise of the poem. The "quest for the perfect place"—whether physical, emotional, or existential—is not unique to the speaker but part of a larger societal condition. The word "infection" suggests that this longing is not a noble pursuit but an unavoidable affliction, an inherent part of life in a city built on dreams and illusions.

"Everything’s a Fake" is a deeply atmospheric poem that weaves together natural landscapes, urban mythology, and personal perception. Through its fluid movement between the physical and the abstract, it captures the instability of place, the deceptive allure of Los Angeles, and the inescapable tension between reality and illusion. The poem does not resolve whether authenticity can be found; instead, it lingers in the recognition that illusion itself is embedded in the landscape, in human desire, and in the act of looking.

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