Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Robert Wrigley’s "A Lock of Her Hair" is a playful yet deeply emotional exploration of longing, love, and the power of memory. Through vivid imagery, inventive language, and a rhythm that mimics both obsession and devotion, the poem captures the speaker’s intense connection to the absent beloved, embodied in the titular lock of hair. This object becomes a symbol of both the lover’s presence and the vast distance separating them, blending humor and melancholy in its meditation on love’s physicality and metaphysical reach.

The opening line, "As a hoodoo-voodoo, get-you-back-to-me tool," sets a tone of playful desperation, immediately framing the lock of hair as an object imbued with magical significance. The invocation of "hoodoo" and "voodoo" introduces a sense of mysticism and ritual, suggesting the speaker’s yearning transcends the rational. The rhyming and rhythmic flow of the line establish a cadence that carries through the poem, evoking the obsessive circling of the speaker’s thoughts as they fixate on their beloved.

The description of the lock’s "thankless task" underscores its futility in bridging the physical and emotional gap between the speaker and the absent lover. The hyperbolic phrase, "a head down to the ground impossibility," captures both the depth of the speaker’s longing and the absurdity of relying on a single lock of hair to encapsulate the vastness of their desire. The speaker acknowledges this impossibility but refuses to relinquish the hope that this relic can somehow summon their beloved.

Wrigley’s language oscillates between the tangible and the abstract, grounding the speaker’s longing in sensory detail while allowing it to soar into imaginative realms. The reference to "your toe pad pinknesses too, / your soup hots and round-and-rounds" conveys a physical intimacy that is both specific and universal. These idiosyncratic phrases evoke the beloved’s unique physical presence, emphasizing the ways in which love resides in the smallest, most mundane details.

The speaker’s reflection on the absent beloved’s physicality transitions into a meditation on the broader emotional impact of their separation. The line "the fine / and perfect poundage of you on my paws" evokes a visceral memory of touch, blending animalistic imagery with tenderness. The speaker’s desire to feel the weight and warmth of their lover underscores the embodied nature of love and the ache of its absence.

The lock of hair becomes a conduit for memory, a physical remnant that holds the power to evoke the beloved’s presence: "the ropes / of it that gently fell around me bound me so well / no hell of miles can defile this dream I dream." Here, the hair is both a symbol of the beloved’s physical form and a metaphorical tether that binds the speaker to their memories. The repetition of "dream" emphasizes the speaker’s reliance on imagination and memory to sustain their connection, even as physical distance renders it intangible.

The poem’s tone shifts between playful self-awareness and earnest longing, as the speaker oscillates between humor and vulnerability. The line "I mean the anyway DNA I can find of you" juxtaposes the scientific precision of "DNA" with the colloquial "anyway," highlighting the speaker’s desperation to grasp any fragment of their beloved. This mix of high and low language mirrors the emotional complexity of love, where profound devotion coexists with everyday yearning.

The closing lines, "my world in a curl, girl, this man oh man half man I am / when you’re gone," bring the poem to a crescendo of vulnerability. The phrase "my world in a curl" encapsulates the central metaphor of the lock of hair as a microcosm of the beloved’s entire being. The speaker’s admission of feeling "half man" without their lover underscores the transformative power of love, which both completes and destabilizes the self.

Wrigley’s use of rhyme and rhythm enhances the poem’s emotional impact, creating a musicality that mirrors the speaker’s circling thoughts and intense feelings. The enjambment and playful phrasing give the poem a conversational, almost breathless quality, as if the speaker cannot contain their emotions within the bounds of conventional syntax.

"A Lock of Her Hair" is a masterful exploration of the intersections between love, memory, and physicality. Through its inventive language and rhythmic flow, Robert Wrigley captures the profound yearning of separation and the ways in which small, tangible objects can carry immense emotional weight. The poem resonates as both a celebration of love’s intensity and a lament for its absence, inviting readers to reflect on the enduring power of connection, even when it exists only in memory.

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