First Draft
Shake Loose the Real
after Erwin Blumenfeld
High over Paris, a woman tiptoes
among the girders of the Eiffel Tower.
Plumes billow from her skirt. Her dreams
plunge like starlings, iridescent blue.
A photographer has lured her to this place
balanced between extremes of the impossible.
He wants her freed-from,
need-less, lifted and aloft.
In the beaten way of history,
smaller-minded men have laid their snares.
He has made life’s work of snapping
bars, loosening the corset of the cage.
Against the steel, her human fingers
ruffle like feathers, longing and alert.
Nearby, his gaze will set her free
if only to revel more fully in her flight.
Moored below, an aimless crowd
laps against the base,
anchored to a ritual, beauty no one means.
True escape wants space
enough to use the wings it has.
Now look: she will not fall.
Unleashed, she wheels, dropping one small shoe.
_____
Comments from Ella, a best reader
I like the words a lot (and the setting!), but something about the flow feels choppy to me, like the poem is tugging on my sleeve too insistently, telling me to look at this and then that. So I mapped out the flow below—
the specific woman
the specific man
men – expanded out
the specific man
the specific woman
the specific man
crowd – expanded out
ending – expanded out
Something about all the pivots in a short piece (especially in the 5th stanza, where it is half her, half him) makes it feel like there are too many pieces stitched together. The other thing that contributes to this is that some of the words and phrases (“lured her,” “he wants her,” “his gaze will set her free”) make it seem like the photographer is the doer/objectifier and the lady is in the poem only to fulfill his vision. Like she is a lesson. But the poem also presses against this — there are so many great descriptions of her (her dreams plunge like starlings, iridescent blue), and the poem ends with her, unleashed, not falling, but dropping one small shoe. But this tension between the two characters feels distracting and counter to the larger drift of the poem. Does this make sense?
Is there a way to make the man less tightly bound to the woman? Or, particularly in the 5th stanza, to zoom outward faster, so this stanza is more about the woman and the environment? (If you do choose keep this tension, I would make it a larger part of the poem so that it feels more intentional. Playing with this tension could be interesting.)
My favorite lines include the line about the starlings, the snares, the crowd lapping against the base, anchored to ritual (this might be my favorite line), and the dropping of the shoe. Looking at the lines I’m draw to makes me think I am more interested in the poem being framed more in terms of the environment (being on the tower; how to balance in extreme places; how to drop a shoe while not falling; the difference between the crowd, anchored to ritual, and the two people above, doing something different) than in terms of the photographer’s goal/drive. He feels tiny compared to the larger scene.
_____
Revisions
Shake Loose the Real
_____after Erwin Blumenfeld
High over Paris, a woman tiptoes
among girders of the Eiffel Tower.
Plumes billow from her skirt; her dreams
plunge like starlings, iridescent blue.
A photographer has coaxed her to this place
balanced between extremes of the impossible.
He’s made life’s work of snapping
narrow bars, loosening the corset of the cage.
If smaller-minded men have laid their snares,
she has slipped their bonds and found
how near her heaven is, how close:
bone now lightened, muscle held aloft.
Against the steel, her human fingers
ruffle like feathers, longing and alert.
Natural as flight, her curls resist their pins.
In calves and thighs, potential for the leap.
Moored below, an aimless crowd
laps against the base,
anchored to a ritual, beauty no one means.
True escape wants space
enough to use the wings it has.
Numinous, she cannot fall.
Unleashed, she wheels,
_____dropping one small shoe.