Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Mary Kinzie’s "Their Story" is a poem that weaves myth, memory, and the intimate complexities of a shared life into a narrative that blurs the lines between allegory and personal history. The poem is densely packed with imagery and allusions, requiring readers to navigate its layered meanings and fractured chronology. At its core, it explores themes of longing, identity, and the transformative effects of love and power.

The opening lines establish a stark and desolate setting: "At this hour of destitution they up on the gritty dunes / suffer out a separate longing as the trains go through." The juxtaposition of the physical landscape—gritty dunes and passing trains—with the emotional distance between the characters sets a tone of estrangement. The "separate longing" suggests that, though physically close, the two are isolated in their private spheres of memory and desire. This duality between connection and separation is a recurring motif throughout the poem.

The next stanza shifts focus to their offspring, who "in the vast gazebo seriously sport." The children’s innocent play contrasts sharply with the weighty introspection of the adults. This dynamic suggests a cyclical view of life, where the carefree vitality of youth exists alongside the burdens of adult reflection. The phrase "seriously sport" is paradoxical, implying a gravitas even in the children’s seemingly trivial activities, mirroring the adults? fraught internal worlds.

Kinzie delves deeper into the characters’ interiority, particularly through the husband’s perspective. He "considers what the marriage cost," a line that encapsulates his ambivalence about their shared history. His gesture of "a stroke upon her swanlike buttock" carries both tenderness and objectification, as he regards her beauty through the lens of memory and regret. The description of her body as "embossed / with the diligence of recall and alertness of regret" underscores the way memory and time have shaped his perception of her. She is both familiar and other, "too little like the stranger she was yet," a paradox that captures the shifting nature of intimacy over time.

The poem takes a mythic turn as the man reflects on his past. He describes himself as a "Power" undone by forces beyond his control, his identity reconfigured by others: "his uncles in the game / redevoted him to satire under a fictitious name." This line hints at a loss of agency and a fractured selfhood, as he is recast into roles imposed upon him. The mythological resonance deepens with the reference to Ajax, the tragic hero of Greek mythology who, in a fit of madness, mistakes livestock for his enemies. The man’s disorientation parallels Ajax’s, as he grapples with the collapse of his constructed reality: "In the sty he thought a palace."

The woman, too, is portrayed through a mythic lens. Her transformation into a divine figure is described with striking imagery: "Her Resurgence chose / to descend in a good figure and the piquancy of clothes." This moment of revelation blurs the boundary between mortal and divine, suggesting that she embodies a force of renewal and destruction. Her duality—part mortal, part divine—is reflected in the way she perceives him. She views his body, "his fraying muscle roping rib to waist," as both a physical reality and a fragment of a larger mythic narrative. Her hands are described as "deadly marble" and her breast as "flame," evoking both the cold permanence of stone and the consuming intensity of fire. This duality underscores her role as both creator and destroyer within their shared mythos.

Their dialogue further illuminates the tensions in their relationship. He declares, "I am him the gods dismembered but unborn as yet," aligning himself with mythic figures torn apart and reassembled. Yet her response—"what, you’ll soon forget"—is both dismissive and incisive, pointing to the fragility of his constructed identity. This exchange captures the essence of their dynamic: a constant negotiation between self-perception and the other’s gaze, between myth and mundane reality.

The poem concludes with an enigmatic image: "In a shed her greaves of silver tap against a clock." The greaves, a piece of armor, suggest protection and martial strength, while the clock signifies time’s relentless march. The juxtaposition of these symbols reinforces the poem’s central tension between permanence and transience, between the mythic and the temporal. Her greaves tapping against the clock evoke a sense of inevitability, as if their story, for all its grandeur and complexity, is ultimately bound by the limits of time.

"Their Story" is a richly layered poem that invites multiple interpretations. It operates simultaneously as a narrative of a strained marriage, a meditation on identity and transformation, and a reimagining of mythological motifs. Kinzie’s intricate language and dense allusions challenge readers to piece together its fragmented narrative, mirroring the characters’ own efforts to reconcile their pasts with their present. Through its interplay of the personal and the mythic, the poem captures the profound and often paradoxical nature of human relationships.

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