Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

David Wagoner’s "Diary" encapsulates a week in the speaker?s life, blending surreal imagery, metaphor, and introspection into a meditation on the human condition. Each day unfolds as a distinct episode, chronicling the speaker’s interactions with themes of greed, power, identity, transformation, and love. The poem’s structure—organized by the days of the week—provides a framework that contrasts with its fluid, dreamlike content, underscoring the tension between routine and existential flux.

The opening stanza sets the tone with its depiction of Monday as a day of embodiment and commerce: "At Monday dawn, I climbed into my skin / And went to see the money." The phrase "climbed into my skin" suggests a ritual of self-awareness or reinvention, as if the speaker must consciously re-enter their physical and emotional identity at the start of each week. The reference to money introduces the pervasive theme of materialism, as the speaker manipulates "shills" and conjures coins "out of their mouths." The surreal transformation of paint into "dollar bills" highlights the commodification of even the mundane. Monday becomes a caricature of capitalist endeavor, where the speaker, embodying greed, "does in" the world below the surface of monetary exchange.

Tuesday continues this trajectory but shifts to a broader scale. The speaker, now "grand in my underwear," engages in a fantastical spree of acquisition, "buy[ing] basements and airplanes" and "swiping from the water." The absurdity of this unchecked consumerism critiques the hubris of human domination over nature and space. The imagery of marketing away "the elms" emphasizes the environmental consequences of greed. By the end of the stanza, the speaker, having stripped nature to its core, confronts "the stones," a metaphor for the immutable and indestructible remnants of the earth.

Wednesday marks a turning point, introducing themes of mortality and introspection. The speaker dons their "shirt, / Trousers, and shoes"—a return to conventional human identity—but only to "dream" of ephemeral and haunting images: "the one-way stairway and the skittering cloud" and "the dangerous, footsore crossing at the heart." These symbols evoke transience and the inevitability of death, contrasting sharply with the materialistic pursuits of earlier days. The "trees, rivers, and stones reach for the dead," linking nature with eternity and positioning it as a witness to human impermanence.

The imagery of Thursday shifts to a pastoral but unsettling tableau. Encased in an "encircling overcoat," the speaker navigates the landscape like a shepherd or predator, "exacting tribute from the flock in the grass." The "woolly" overcoat likens the speaker to a ram, blurring the line between human and animal. This duality is further emphasized by the line, "My look passed through the werewolf to the lamb," which encapsulates the speaker’s oscillation between predatory instincts and vulnerability. The transformation inherent in this stanza continues the poem’s meditation on identity as fluid and unstable.

Friday introduces disintegration and a stripping away of layers. The speaker’s overcoat "fell open like a throat," an image at once visceral and vulnerable, suggesting exposure and surrender. Clothing—symbolic of identity and societal roles—dissolves into "spidery" remnants and "a knot." This unraveling culminates in the striking metaphor, "My skin in a spiral tapered into gold." The transformation into gold, a symbol of wealth and immortality, ties back to the materialism of earlier days but now takes on an alchemical quality, suggesting purification or transcendence.

Saturday brings renewal and intimacy, marking a return to love and connection. The speaker describes a "graft" growing "milky at a kiss," evoking images of healing and symbiosis. The day is "naked," stripped of the artifice and pretense of earlier days, allowing for vulnerability and genuine connection. The speaker lies on the accumulated weight of the week—"money, lust, and vapor, / Megalomania, fear"—suggesting that love provides respite but not erasure. The culmination of these forces leads to reflection.

The poem concludes on Sunday with the act of writing, an attempt to impose order and understanding on the chaos of the preceding days. The speaker’s admission, "I wrote this," draws attention to the act of creation and self-examination as a way to reconcile the week’s experiences. By ending on a note of self-awareness, the poem elevates the personal to the universal, suggesting that the cycles of excess, loss, transformation, and renewal are integral to the human experience.

Wagoner’s use of language is both vivid and fluid, blending surrealism with grounded details. The week becomes a microcosm of life’s broader themes: the pursuit of material wealth, the confrontation with mortality, the tension between identity and transformation, and the redemptive potential of love and self-reflection. The poem’s structure provides a framework, but its imagery and tone resist containment, reflecting the unpredictability of human existence. "Diary" is a powerful exploration of the human condition, capturing the interplay between the mundane and the profound, the tangible and the transcendent.

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