Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Lynn Emanuel’s poem "Tourists" juxtaposes intense personal reflection and trauma against a seemingly mundane backdrop of travel in Tunis, weaving together themes of mortality, family history, and the resilience of the human spirit. Through her vivid and evocative imagery, Emanuel crafts a narrative that bridges personal experience with broader historical and cultural contexts.

The poem begins with an attempt to engage in serious discussions about "divorce and dying" while in Tunis, but this is quickly abandoned for a more casual setting among "rug merchants under a plum tree." This setting, with its exotic locale and the sensory detail of a "lamb’s severed head" being consumed by both flies and fire, introduces a stark contrast between life’s deeper issues and the distractions provided by the world's vibrant, if sometimes harsh, tapestry.

The imagery of the "lamb’s severed head" watching the flies and its own consumption evokes a sense of inevitable decay and mortality, themes that are explored throughout the poem. This macabre scene sets the stage for deeper reflections, bridging to thoughts of the speaker's grandmother, whom the speaker imagines would have appreciated such a night. This transition from the immediate surroundings to memories of the grandmother introduces a personal history that resonates with the themes of life and death.

The mention of the grandmother further extends into a personal narrative involving the speaker’s own brush with death. The grandmother’s actions, moving "like a figure / On a clock" and her caring gestures, are recalled with a nostalgic precision that contrasts sharply with the speaker’s traumatic experience of surgery, detailed in the imagery of being "a week out of the hospital" with an incision "crossed / With stitches of surgical thread."

The poem intensifies as the speaker recalls the proximity of the scalpel to her heart, describing it as a "quick kiss" that almost resulted in death. This brush with mortality is not just a past trauma but a lingering presence, as indicated by the "skin / Flutter on the inside of my left breast" and the heart that "limps like a great uncle."

This great uncle's story, briefly narrated toward the end of the poem, draws a parallel between personal suffering and historical trauma. His ordeal of being "dragged by cossacks across the steppes" due to his Jewish identity and disability metaphorically links the speaker’s scars to broader narratives of persecution and survival. The uncle's survival, turned into a metaphorical race where "the green grass rose to meet him," symbolizes a triumph against adversity, a theme that resonates with the speaker’s own survival story.

"Tourists" is a layered poem that navigates through personal memory, family history, and the existential realities of life and death, all within the framing device of a tourist’s casual encounter in Tunis. Emanuel’s skillful use of imagery and narrative interweaving creates a rich, textured exploration of how deeply personal histories are interlaced with broader cultural and historical narratives, and how places can evoke and contextualize our deepest stories.

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