Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

 Lynn Emanuel’s poem "What Grieving Was" captures the disorienting and fragmented nature of grief through vivid imagery and poignant details, illustrating how loss affects perception and memory. The poem is set against the backdrop of a hot summer, which serves both as a literal and metaphorical representation of the speaker's emotional state—intense and uncomfortable.

The poem begins with a declaration of what the summer was not—it "was not the summer of aspic / and cold veal," foods typically associated with formal gatherings or funerals, suggesting a contrast between expected rituals of mourning and the speaker's actual experience of grief. Instead, the immediate physical discomforts are foregrounded: "it was so hot / the car seat stung my thighs / and the rearview mirror swam / with mirage." These sensations emphasize the visceral, physical nature of grief, which is often as much a bodily experience as an emotional one.

The description of the car, with "the leather grip was noosed by twine," adds a layer of tension and deterioration, hinting at the ways in which the family’s outward stability might be fraying under the strain of loss. The statement "We were not poor but we had / the troubles of the poor" further complicates the family’s situation, suggesting financial stability does not shield one from suffering and emotional hardship.

Emanuel’s depiction of the mother— "She who had been that soft snore / beside the Nytol, open-mouthed,"—is tender yet stark, portraying her in a vulnerable, unguarded moment. This image, coupled with the ambiguous "somewhere, somewhere / there was a bay, there was a boat," evokes a sense of the mother’s absence as both a physical and emotional void, filled with undefined spaces and incomplete narratives.

The speaker’s focus on transient details—"what I remember best / is the way everything came and went / in the window of my brief attention"—highlights how grief can disrupt one’s ability to concentrate and engage with the world. This fleeting attention is captured perfectly at the wake, where the child is "beguiled / by the chromium yellow lemon pies," focusing on vivid but trivial details as a way of coping with the overwhelming emotions of the occasion.

The poem's reference to "The grandfather clock’s pendant / of unaffordable gold" and the marking of time suggest the relentless and indifferent passage of time in contrast to human sentiment and loss. Finally, the "hearse rolled forward over the O’s / of its own surprise" is a beautifully crafted image that captures the suddenness of death and the continual moving forward of life in the aftermath of loss, often leaving those grieving feeling unprepared and shocked by the progression of events.

Overall, "What Grieving Was" portrays grief not as a single emotion but as a complex, often contradictory experience that distorts reality and alters one’s perception of the everyday. Emanuel masterfully uses physical sensations and sharp imagery to evoke the pervasive, unsettling presence of loss that characterizes grieving.

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