Yesterday, I wrote about my “close encounter of the poetic kind” at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport last Monday when I met poet Calvin Forbes. Emily Dickinson introduced us. I kid you not. Details are HERE.
Just after Mr. Forbes disappeared into the throng of weary travelers (all dealing with countless weather delays), I clicked on a Poetry Foundation link for one of his poems and read – with utter delight – “The Card Players,” a humorous and heartfelt tribute to three brothers (Forbes’ brothers, if the poem is autobiographical; keep in mind that in July 1862, Emily Dickinson wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “When I state myself, as the Representative of the Verse-it does not mean-me-but a supposed person.” Is this the case with Forbes too?).
Just after Mr. Forbes disappeared into the throng of weary travelers (all dealing with countless weather delays), I clicked on a Poetry Foundation link for one of his poems and read – with utter delight – “The Card Players,” a humorous and heartfelt tribute to three brothers (Forbes’ brothers, if the poem is autobiographical; keep in mind that in July 1862, Emily Dickinson wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “When I state myself, as the Representative of the Verse-it does not mean-me-but a supposed person.” Is this the case with Forbes too?).
 | Forbes’ work unfolds in five stanzas, each of four lines of free verse, with no rhyme scheme and no particular meter. Visually, the work is very “poetic” looking, and though there is no metric pattern, the flow of the language is wholly effective. Additionally, the work is punctuated with a number of poetic elements including internal rhyme, simile, metaphor, onomatopoeia, hyperbole, and even a subtle but apt pun at the end of line 19. The conversational cadence of the work called to mind lines I’d read recently in George Monteiro’s book Robert Frost and the New England Renaissance about Frost’s take on Dickinson. Frost, known to fuss about Dickinson’s unconventional form, rhyme, and meter, contrasted his work with hers by grumbling, “I try to make good sentences fit the meter.” Ditto here on that point for Forbes. His “good sentences” flow at a pace that he manages as easily as running the flow from a faucet. Compare, for example, the controlled pace of the third stanza when describing the older siblings to the fast-paced, barely-catch-a-breath clip of lines 14 to 19 – only to slow the tempo again in the final line and a half when the odds were evened with the arrival of the fourth. This dynamic, Forbes’ command of pace, is a bit Cummings-esque (think “Buffalo Bill’s,” for example) but with natural speech sans quirky spacing. |
The effective flow of the “good sentences” is matched, too, by the number of impactful details of family and brotherly love distributed throughout the poem, dealt like cards in a winning hand. Some examples:
* Line 2: How funny – the three brothers invite a fourth, but not the younger sibling; he merely tags along as “a spare.”
* Lines 11 and 12: The fitting description of the “wild card” third child.
* Line 12: The effective use of the pronoun “it” when describing the moxie of the third brother, ready to fight any of them if “it” rolled beyond talk – no antecedent needed. **chef’s kiss**
* Line 13: The big brothers’ perspective of the little one – even after he had a child of his own.
There are other deft details throughout. For example, the fusion of “jive” in line 5 with the poet’s ease of “shouting out a rhyme” (from line 4) and the inferred game-time banter of friends; Biblical references to underscore weighty perceptions of youth; the gutsy “slam damned” in line 7, referencing both the high-octane zeal of the game as well as the passion paired with the laughter in line 8; the passage of time – “morning noon and night” – reminiscent of Dickinson’s “The second half of joy / Is shorter than the first" (from her poem "Consulting summer's clock" -- which I wrote about just the other day, HERE).
What have I missed? What jumps out for you with Forbes' poem?
* Line 2: How funny – the three brothers invite a fourth, but not the younger sibling; he merely tags along as “a spare.”
* Lines 11 and 12: The fitting description of the “wild card” third child.
* Line 12: The effective use of the pronoun “it” when describing the moxie of the third brother, ready to fight any of them if “it” rolled beyond talk – no antecedent needed. **chef’s kiss**
* Line 13: The big brothers’ perspective of the little one – even after he had a child of his own.
There are other deft details throughout. For example, the fusion of “jive” in line 5 with the poet’s ease of “shouting out a rhyme” (from line 4) and the inferred game-time banter of friends; Biblical references to underscore weighty perceptions of youth; the gutsy “slam damned” in line 7, referencing both the high-octane zeal of the game as well as the passion paired with the laughter in line 8; the passage of time – “morning noon and night” – reminiscent of Dickinson’s “The second half of joy / Is shorter than the first" (from her poem "Consulting summer's clock" -- which I wrote about just the other day, HERE).
What have I missed? What jumps out for you with Forbes' poem?
BTW: I did look up whether Dickinson ever used "cards" or "card" in any of her poems (no...and yes...respectively), so I'll report out on that soon.
RSS Feed
