Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Dorianne Laux’s “Even Music” captures the raw, inescapable grief of continuing life after the loss of a loved one. The poem’s vivid imagery and melancholic tone reveal the futility and necessity of motion in the wake of death, where music, though insufficient to encapsulate grief, becomes a companion to the journey.

The poem’s opening directive, “Drive toward the Juan de Fuca Strait,” situates the reader in a liminal space—a journey to the edge of the continent, a symbolic boundary between land and sea, life and death. This geographical marker underscores the emotional and existential precipice the speaker inhabits. The choice of “Moondog Matinee,” a collection of covers by The Band, evokes themes of nostalgia and reinvention, fitting for a reflection on mourning and memory.

Laux’s assertion, “No song ever written gets close to it,” highlights the inadequacy of art, even music, to fully articulate the depth of grief. The phrase “how it feels to go on after the body you love has been put into the ground for eternity” is stark and visceral, refusing euphemisms. The juxtaposition of the eternal finality of burial with the relentless continuation of life encapsulates the tension at the heart of the poem.

The journey described is both physical and emotional. The speaker crosses “bridge after bridge, / through ten kinds of rain,” evoking an endless series of transitions and trials. The abandoned fireworks booths, “their closed flaps streaked with soot,” serve as symbols of joy and celebration turned to decay and loss, mirroring the speaker’s internal state. The landscape becomes a reflection of grief, each detail laden with significance.

The imagery grows more visceral and despairing with the “gash on the flank of a red barn: / Jesus Loves You. 5 $ a Fish.” The juxtaposition of religious platitude with the banal commercial offer underscores the absurdity of finding solace in easy answers. The rhetorical question, “He’s dead. Where’s your miracle?” directly confronts the futility of faith and hope in the face of irrevocable loss.

Music, while central to the poem, is depicted as both a balm and a torment. The act of playing a tape so “a woman can wear out a love song” becomes a ritual of endurance. The repeated “Keep moving, keep listening” speaks to the human instinct to persist, even when life feels meaningless. Yet, the music itself becomes “the awful noise / the living make,” a reminder of the speaker’s isolation among the living and the cacophony of existence.

The saxophone’s “blind, unearthly moan” serves as a haunting final note. The saxophone, an instrument often associated with longing and melancholy, mirrors the speaker’s mourning. Its description as “blind” and “unearthly” suggests both an inability to see the future and a connection to the ineffable—grief as a bridge to the unknowable realms of existence.

Structurally, the poem’s free verse and its unadorned, conversational tone emphasize the rawness of the speaker’s grief. The enjambment mimics the continuous motion of the drive and the unrelenting nature of loss. Each line unravels like a thought or image that cannot fully be contained or resolved.

In “Even Music”, Laux captures the paradox of grief: the necessity to move forward despite an overwhelming desire to linger in the past. The journey through physical landscapes reflects the speaker’s internal struggle, while music, both inadequate and essential, becomes a testament to life’s persistence amidst sorrow. Through its vivid imagery and understated tone, the poem reminds us that even in the face of unbearable loss, there is a stubborn rhythm to existence, a blind moan that continues, despite everything.

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