Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Dara Wier’s "We’re All Ghosts Now" is a meditation on presence, absence, and the ways language attempts to bridge the gap between the living and the dead. The poem moves fluidly between conversation, memory, and metaphor, layering voices in a way that blurs the distinctions between past and present, material and immaterial. Wier's speaker engages with ghosts—not just as supernatural figures but as embodiments of lost time, fleeting relationships, and the spectral nature of communication itself.

The opening lines introduce an unnamed friend who declares "We’re all ghosts now," a statement the speaker distances herself from: "who doesn’t know it now / But he’s been conscripted to say what I shouldn’t / Want anyone to say too soon, too suddenly, too many times / More than must be said." The phrase "conscripted" suggests an involuntary role, as if this friend has unknowingly become a mouthpiece for something larger than himself—perhaps a truth the speaker isn't ready to accept. The concern over "too soon, too suddenly, too many times" hints at the weight of repetition, at grief or inevitability spoken into existence. Even though the sentiment may be unavoidable, the speaker resists its finality.

This tension between resisting and acknowledging reality continues in the next stanza: "It’s a tall order, or as another friend says / A tall drink of water, otherwise: it’s plain & simple: / What anyone wants most of all." The phrase "tall order" implies difficulty, an overwhelming demand, whereas "a tall drink of water" suggests refreshment or relief. The contrast between these two idioms captures the dual nature of existence—the burden of living and the longing for something essential, sustaining. The final line, "What anyone wants most of all," is left open-ended, allowing for interpretation: is it love, understanding, peace, or something as simple as clarity?

Throughout the poem, Wier presents voices that shape the speaker’s consciousness. "Another friend tells me I’m easy and means something sweetly as when / One caves with the slightest shudder somehow thoroughly." This line suggests surrender—perhaps to emotion, nostalgia, or inevitability. The word "easy" is often loaded, but here it is reframed as something tender, an openness rather than a weakness. The imagery of "caving with the slightest shudder" evokes the way grief or memory can take hold unexpectedly, seeping in rather than overwhelming all at once.

The next passage considers poetry as a conduit for meaning: "Another says what you say should be in a poem which means / Someone is taking for me the trouble to breathe, maybe fire." The idea of "taking for me the trouble to breathe" suggests that poetry externalizes emotion, allowing language to bear the weight of experience. The addition of "maybe fire" links breath to transformation—perhaps to inspiration, destruction, or passion. This interplay between breath and fire suggests poetry as both a vital force and a consuming one.

Wier then pivots to a striking medical metaphor: "Lucidity, quick and painlessly employed, kind of, as a kind nurse employs / Her rough pinch to be less strict than her needle’s as it settles into a vein." The comparison of lucidity to a nurse’s pinch implies that clarity often comes with discomfort. The "needle"—which draws blood—becomes a symbol for the poem itself, extracting meaning, diagnosing experience. This image deepens as Wier extends the metaphor: "To take sufficient blood away somewhere to be deployed in centrifuge / To diagnose and otherwise and likewise and counterclockwise say, the way / Metaphor or blood can have the last word." Here, poetry and the body are linked through motion and transformation. Blood, spun in a centrifuge, separates into its essential components—just as poetry distills thought, emotion, and memory. The phrase "the way / Metaphor or blood can have the last word" reinforces the power of both language and the body’s internal workings to dictate reality.

The speaker acknowledges a fundamental uncertainty: "In order to be sure of what the / Center is, everything has to spin away, I guess." This statement echoes the centrifuge’s function—meaning is only revealed through motion, through disassembly. Certainty, then, is not found in stillness but in the centrifugal force of experience.

The poem then turns explicitly to ghosts: "Your words like a lost ghost / On a mission. I’ve never met a ghost who’s not on a mission. / Why otherwise bother to be a ghost’s ghost?" Here, words are spectral, carrying echoes of the past. The speaker claims that ghosts are always purposeful, seeking resolution or connection. The phrase "a ghost’s ghost" doubles the distance—suggesting that even the memory of the past has its own haunting presence, that absence can beget further absence.

The final lines introduce water as a medium for communicating with the dead: "When we write to ghosts we write on stony water. One can skip a stone / In order to pretend to find ten thousand things." The act of writing "on stony water" suggests both impermanence and impossibility—water does not hold inscriptions, and yet the impulse to mark it remains. The image of skipping a stone implies an illusion of discovery; each bounce across the surface feels like insight, yet ultimately, the stone sinks. This mirrors the way memory and language attempt to grasp at something just out of reach. The speaker concludes with a simple yet profound observation: "Nearby is very close. / Nearby I take your words to water. My ghosts are growing restless." The phrase "Nearby is very close" suggests a collapsing of distances—perhaps between the living and the dead, the present and the past. The speaker’s act of bringing words to water implies an offering, a ritual for the restless ghosts who linger.

"We’re All Ghosts Now" explores themes of mortality, memory, and the way language attempts to hold onto what inevitably slips away. Wier's use of fragmented conversations reflects the way thoughts and recollections surface unpredictably, intertwining with the voices of others. The poem treats ghosts not as supernatural beings but as manifestations of absence—of people, experiences, or feelings that refuse to be fully forgotten.

The poem suggests that language is both inadequate and necessary; while it cannot resurrect the dead, it serves as a bridge between what is lost and what remains. The recurring images of breath, fire, blood, and water emphasize transformation—poetry as a process of distillation, of making sense of what haunts us. The restless ghosts at the poem’s end imply that even as we write, even as we attempt to communicate with what is gone, the past continues to stir, unsettled.

Ultimately, Wier’s poem is a reflection on the impermanence of life and the persistence of memory. The speaker resists finality, allowing for the possibility that ghosts—like words—never truly disappear, but instead remain nearby, waiting for us to acknowledge them.

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