Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"This Dictionary is My Father's Book" by Clayton Eshleman is a visceral and emotionally charged poem that delves deep into the complexities of familial relationships, inheritance, and personal identity. Eshleman uses evocative language and imagery to convey the weight of parental influence and the struggle to forge a sense of self amid overpowering familial legacies.

The poem opens with the line "I crocodiled it from him," employing the verb "crocodiled" in a novel way to suggest an act of predatory acquisition or perhaps a fierce, almost primal claim over something taken from the father. This sets the tone for a poem that is both confrontational and deeply intertwined with the familial.

"My baby bottom flashed the horror of the moon" is a striking image that captures innocence juxtaposed with a sense of exposure or revelation. This line suggests vulnerability, possibly referencing the sudden, harsh realities that the speaker faced from a very young age, linking personal growth with traumatic or intense experiences.

"These words are my father's lords. / I enspeculated them from him." The term "enspeculated," another neologism, suggests a deep, speculative internalization of language from the father. The words are described as the father's "lords," indicating a dominion over the speaker's linguistic and perhaps psychological landscape. This dominion is not just influential but governing, dominating, and controlling.

The transformation from childhood to adulthood is powerfully encapsulated in "My puberty flexed as his whip raved wild," an image that conflates growing up with pain inflicted by the father. The metaphor of the whip implies that the father's influence or discipline was both wild and possibly destructive, shaping the speaker's development in profound ways.

"These words are my father's gnomes." Here, words are personified as gnomes, creatures that are typically associated with guarding treasures or secrets. This suggests that the language inherited from the father is both a treasure and a burden, filled with hidden depths and perhaps dark secrets.

The loss of a pet, a seemingly more personal and isolated experience, is also drawn into the familial and linguistic theme: "I listened to my dog's death. / Sparky's maggots formed the ordered chaos of my lines." The speaker's grief and the physical decay of the dog metaphorically influence the structure of his thoughts and expressions. This vivid and disturbing image reflects how personal experiences are processed and articulated through the language inherited from the father, shaping the speaker's poetic voice.

The closing lines, "These words are my father's failure to rule. These words are my mother lore, this is the blitz of my father, I am steeped in his unspeakable hell," encapsulate the conflicted emotions surrounding familial legacy. The father's "failure to rule" and the "blitz" suggest a chaotic, perhaps tyrannical presence, while "my mother lore" introduces a different, perhaps softer or more nurturing, influence. Yet, both are described in terms of profound impact — a "steeping" in "unspeakable hell" — highlighting the intense, perhaps traumatic, influence of family dynamics on the speaker's identity and expression.

Overall, "This Dictionary is My Father's Book" uses a deeply personal and evocative lexicon to explore the themes of power, pain, and inheritance. Eshleman’s crafting of language not only conveys the depth of familial influence but also the struggle to articulate a self within and beyond that pervasive shadow.

POEM TEXT: https://www.google.com/books/edition/From_Scratch/gaRq3n32fBUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=THIS%20DICTIONARY

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