Paul B. J
Paul B. Janeczko’s poem, “Mary Todd Lincoln Speaks of Her Son’s Death, 1862,” appears within the Writers Play with Language section of Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s Poems Are Teachers: How Studying Poetry Strengthens Writing in All Genres.
Janeczko’s poem is a model piece demonstrating how poets Repeat for Effect.
In this piece each stanza expounds upon the word, “gone,” as having multitude of meanings and effects upon the listener.
James Castle would not have words to which he could or would need to attend. Even the word, “deaf” would have been lost to him without a hearing experience anywhere in his early life.
Janeczko introduces the poem before the first repetition of the word gone which forecasts the following four stanzas. In order to follow the model, I would have had to have chosen a word that would be familiar to James. And this wouldn’t be possible for James, so I picked a work with which the world is most familiar in reference to James: “Outsider.”
“The Sound of a Word Spoken but Unheard”
When they first noticed
that James didn’t respond
their loud calls to chores
his family thought him
too lazy to tend the farm;
they called him “outsider.”
Outsider.
The word was a place
to stay each day away
to do his work within
wooden walls of silence.
Outsider.
The word means Our stories
are not yours–unless you gain
something from attempting to speak,
a shriek your only chance to share.
Outsider.
The word means a special school
another institution of isolation
where they sometimes make you sit
on your working hands until you talk.
Outsider.
A word that means a special community
recognizes you now ages after
the body of your work
has joined with others’
and you are no longer
alone. . .you are
an artist.
Love the progression, the layering of meaning.