In The Dance of No Hard Feelings Mark Bibbins’ use of brackets intrigued me, especially since I hadn’t read many poems that used them. As such, this became the main influence in how I wrote my poem in response to his collection. In addition to a focus on brackets, I also explored titling techniques while writing this poem.
As I mentioned in my review of his collection, Bibbins uses brackets for interjections, which sometimes modify the preceding statement or add to it as an afterthought. With this in mind, I chose to use brackets in a similar fashion in which they would act as a way to show a different perspective or correction to the statement made just before. For example, my first use of the brackets occurs when the speaker’s mother explains that whacking a fish’s head “stuns them/[online: prevents the human feeling squeamish].”
The brackets introduce new information about why one would whack the head of a fish while cleaning it. In this instance, this new information juxtaposed to the mother’s statement adds a layer to the speaker’s relationship to her mother. The new information in brackets suggests that the previous information must be modified or commented upon. By stating online followed by a colon, the reader is forced to pause and acknowledge the source of the new information—online versus the word of the mother. As a result, the brackets become imbued with the idea that they denote a piece of factual information, regardless of the preceding statements. This suggests the mother’s words, it stuns them, must lack some of that factualness, and therefore, the mother becomes an untruthful figure in her relationship with the speaker.
I used brackets to further develop this relationship in the later instance when I wrote that it was “Mother’s turn to clean [to flay] the fish.” Similarly to the first example, the use of brackets in this excerpt also demonstrates the idea that the previous information is somehow incorrect. While the bracketed information suggests some sort of inaccuracy, the fact that they’re juxtaposed to the mother’s actions again establishes her as a deceptive figure. The relationship between the speaker and mother is further developed, since, as a first-person perspective, the reader would realize it is the speaker inserting the corrected information. The brackets, then, are literally and figuratively enclosed spaces for the speaker to correct the mother and even confess difference of opinion, specifically on what exactly is being done to the fish, clean being a positive connotation, flay being a negative one.
While brackets were my main concern in writing this poem, titling it became another focus after it was written. Up until my most recent poems, I usually just used the last line of the poem as the title, almost like a frame to emphasize the twist or theme at the end of the poem. However, the more I’ve been exposed to contemporary poets, the more I’ve realized this technique isn’t really the best one. Therefore, I had a particularly difficult time titling this poem. The first title I thought of, and still its current title, was “Fish Guts.” At first I thought this was a poor title, but good enough to at least use as a file name—after all, I was definitely going to remember which poem had that title.
While trying to figure out a new title, I was exposed to two titling techniques. The first is what a friend called the point-and-click method, in which you close your eyes, point to a random place in your untitled poem, and use that word or phrase as the title. Although the easiest, this technique is probably as effective as my last-line-of-the-poem method. The point-and-click is a good method for a rough draft when you’re just trying to remember the poem based on a short descriptor. This method could also be an effective exercise in exploring the poem’s meaning from different aspects of the poem. However, it ultimately leaves the poem’s title up to chance, which isn’t always so great, especially if you point to the weakest line of the poem.
The second technique involves using “collected phrases” that may have inspired the poem or that have been collected in an “idea” journal. What’s great about this method is that if you use one of the phrases that originally inspired the poem, you give the reader a starting point to the thought process that resulted in the poem. It shows where you were coming from when writing the poem.
However, the problem with this method occurs with the final poem draft. As the poem developed, the collected phrase could have developed with it, therefore becoming even more meaningful to the poem as a whole. On the other hand, if the poem has developed beyond the original phrase meanings, then it merely acts as a sentimental token of your original poem inspiration. At this point, that phrase has become the old skin of the poem, and must be shed before the last draft’s pink flesh can shine through.
Although these titling methods might work for some poems, I still couldn’t find a title that really fit the poem. Upon reflection, though, I found that the blunt nature of my original title, “Fish Guts,” contrasted the deceptive nature of the poem. Bibbins’ poems work similarly in that the titles reflect the tone of the poem. For example, in his poem “We, The Reader,” he uses the title to introduce the perspective of the poem and set the tone as representative with we. In “Here a Narrative, There a Narrative, Everywhere a Narrative Narrative,” his title sets the reader up for the structure of the poem in which here, there, and everywhere the white space affects how you read the poem. It’s one narrative if you focus on the bracketed words aligned to the left, but another if you focus on the other words of the poem.
In my poem, I found the phrase fish guts acted as a blunt way to get the truth of the poem out—the speaker is no longer acknowledging the violent act of cleaning a fish in the private space of the brackets. She is stating the raw, bloody truth in the most obvious place of the poem. This emphasizes the idea of the poem that it’s only by slicing open the fish that we can reveal our true emotions. Even though the truth may make us squeamish, we have to learn to call it as it is—flaying, not just cleaning—rather than use language to hide those emotions and thoughts.
In the end, the method for choosing a title doesn’t really matter so long as the title itself adds meaning to the poem. After all, different systems for choosing titles work for different poets and even different poems.
As I mentioned in my review of his collection, Bibbins uses brackets for interjections, which sometimes modify the preceding statement or add to it as an afterthought. With this in mind, I chose to use brackets in a similar fashion in which they would act as a way to show a different perspective or correction to the statement made just before. For example, my first use of the brackets occurs when the speaker’s mother explains that whacking a fish’s head “stuns them/[online: prevents the human feeling squeamish].”
The brackets introduce new information about why one would whack the head of a fish while cleaning it. In this instance, this new information juxtaposed to the mother’s statement adds a layer to the speaker’s relationship to her mother. The new information in brackets suggests that the previous information must be modified or commented upon. By stating online followed by a colon, the reader is forced to pause and acknowledge the source of the new information—online versus the word of the mother. As a result, the brackets become imbued with the idea that they denote a piece of factual information, regardless of the preceding statements. This suggests the mother’s words, it stuns them, must lack some of that factualness, and therefore, the mother becomes an untruthful figure in her relationship with the speaker.
I used brackets to further develop this relationship in the later instance when I wrote that it was “Mother’s turn to clean [to flay] the fish.” Similarly to the first example, the use of brackets in this excerpt also demonstrates the idea that the previous information is somehow incorrect. While the bracketed information suggests some sort of inaccuracy, the fact that they’re juxtaposed to the mother’s actions again establishes her as a deceptive figure. The relationship between the speaker and mother is further developed, since, as a first-person perspective, the reader would realize it is the speaker inserting the corrected information. The brackets, then, are literally and figuratively enclosed spaces for the speaker to correct the mother and even confess difference of opinion, specifically on what exactly is being done to the fish, clean being a positive connotation, flay being a negative one.
While brackets were my main concern in writing this poem, titling it became another focus after it was written. Up until my most recent poems, I usually just used the last line of the poem as the title, almost like a frame to emphasize the twist or theme at the end of the poem. However, the more I’ve been exposed to contemporary poets, the more I’ve realized this technique isn’t really the best one. Therefore, I had a particularly difficult time titling this poem. The first title I thought of, and still its current title, was “Fish Guts.” At first I thought this was a poor title, but good enough to at least use as a file name—after all, I was definitely going to remember which poem had that title.
While trying to figure out a new title, I was exposed to two titling techniques. The first is what a friend called the point-and-click method, in which you close your eyes, point to a random place in your untitled poem, and use that word or phrase as the title. Although the easiest, this technique is probably as effective as my last-line-of-the-poem method. The point-and-click is a good method for a rough draft when you’re just trying to remember the poem based on a short descriptor. This method could also be an effective exercise in exploring the poem’s meaning from different aspects of the poem. However, it ultimately leaves the poem’s title up to chance, which isn’t always so great, especially if you point to the weakest line of the poem.
The second technique involves using “collected phrases” that may have inspired the poem or that have been collected in an “idea” journal. What’s great about this method is that if you use one of the phrases that originally inspired the poem, you give the reader a starting point to the thought process that resulted in the poem. It shows where you were coming from when writing the poem.
However, the problem with this method occurs with the final poem draft. As the poem developed, the collected phrase could have developed with it, therefore becoming even more meaningful to the poem as a whole. On the other hand, if the poem has developed beyond the original phrase meanings, then it merely acts as a sentimental token of your original poem inspiration. At this point, that phrase has become the old skin of the poem, and must be shed before the last draft’s pink flesh can shine through.
Although these titling methods might work for some poems, I still couldn’t find a title that really fit the poem. Upon reflection, though, I found that the blunt nature of my original title, “Fish Guts,” contrasted the deceptive nature of the poem. Bibbins’ poems work similarly in that the titles reflect the tone of the poem. For example, in his poem “We, The Reader,” he uses the title to introduce the perspective of the poem and set the tone as representative with we. In “Here a Narrative, There a Narrative, Everywhere a Narrative Narrative,” his title sets the reader up for the structure of the poem in which here, there, and everywhere the white space affects how you read the poem. It’s one narrative if you focus on the bracketed words aligned to the left, but another if you focus on the other words of the poem.
In my poem, I found the phrase fish guts acted as a blunt way to get the truth of the poem out—the speaker is no longer acknowledging the violent act of cleaning a fish in the private space of the brackets. She is stating the raw, bloody truth in the most obvious place of the poem. This emphasizes the idea of the poem that it’s only by slicing open the fish that we can reveal our true emotions. Even though the truth may make us squeamish, we have to learn to call it as it is—flaying, not just cleaning—rather than use language to hide those emotions and thoughts.
In the end, the method for choosing a title doesn’t really matter so long as the title itself adds meaning to the poem. After all, different systems for choosing titles work for different poets and even different poems.