Sunday, September 25, 2016

Can you help me with the phrasing in "Black Monday Lovesong" by A.S.J. Tessimond?

In A.S.J.
Tessimond's poem, "Black Monday Lovesong," I believe that the author intentionally
structures the poem, through phrasing and line/stanza construction, to mimic a dance. In fact,
the poem is athat compares a dance to love.

The poem's first line indicates
that "love's dances" are a central theme to the poem, in that the author repeats these
linesessentially telling us that this idea is very important.

The rest of the
first stanza (eleven lines remaininglonger than a poem's traditional four-line stanzas) lists
opposites, that mimic not only movement, but a foward-and-back motion such
as dancers follow. Reading the poem aloud, we can imagine the one dancer pushing or pulling the
other dancer, as they essentially move in togetherone forward, the other back€¦like people in a
relationship trying to find the right moves, tempo, etc.:


One retreats and one advances.

One grows warmer and one
colder,

One more hesitant, one bolder.


These "motions" start with physical movement, but then
change to emotional "states of mind:"

One is
smiling and concealing [physical actions]

While the other's asking, kneeling.
[an emotional state]

The second line may seem like a
physical movement, but in that this is a metaphorical dance, the second
person is struggling to keep in step in the "dance of love," (trying not to lose the
other's love), while the other is "keeping secrets" or hiding his/her true thoughts
"concealing," thereby making the dance more difficult to "follow."


The next "stanza" of six lines is written in such a way that the momentum of
the poem increases; the repeated use of "And" gives the listener the sense of not only
hurried "motion," but also of frantic, twirling chaos. The dancers are in serious
trouble as they spin around, almost out of controlsimply by using "And" repeatedly,
and the author gives us negative images in the short phrases; the brevity of the phrases adds to
the sense of speed:

And the tune misleads the
dancer

And the lost look finds no other

And the lost hand
finds no brother

The last actual four-line stanza is
structured in such a way that the relationship between the lovers, both their loss of physically
smooth movements and proximity, and their emotional connection, is broken. Perhaps we can
imagine the two coming apart on the dance floor, no longer in step with each other. This is
obvious with the author's use of the word "falter," which could indicate tripping, a
terrible mistake on the dance floor.

The href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis"
title="ellipsis">ellipses (dots) between the choppy phrases in the last
two lines give the listener the sense that the two dancers (lovers) separate, stumbling in
opposite directions, each looking for their "perfect dance partner"  somewhere
else:

Next time€¦one day€¦one day€¦next time!


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