Imagery and the Inclusion of Technical Terms

Earlier this semester I read Kay Ryan, and her poems were full of imagery; in fact, many of her poems were almost completely imagery rather than a narration of events. In contrast, Applewhite weaves together natural/scenic imagery and narration. I think that this enhances both the narration and the imagery.

Here's a good example:

A Late Sun

Buona sera, with an afternoon reverberant of engines,
as kamikaze scooters nip at the heels of tourists in
the Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere. We pause
to drink expensive water and Coke

and watch the Roman azure attenuate through odor
of diesel smoke. Inside, mosaics had glistened, as late
sunlight lapped the convexisty of the apse. Sheep bore
on their backs a time of Christ

and saints. The gazes of those boys on high met our eyes
so directly and piercingly they seemed almost not
strange anymore. To adore the precious color and
entablature was nearly to believe.

The later, frescoed angels a layer below whirled robes
with limbs made lithe by a real world. Outside,
Italian kids kicked a soccer ball beside the central fountain
and had me smiling, glad

that Christ was human on one side of the family, at least--
that praisers of his cast belief in fresco, intelligible as
flowers in the orto botanico, where I snapped your picture, so
you will not fade anymore, my saint.


Applewhite begins and ends the poem with Italian phrases. "Buona sera" means "good evening" and "orto botanico" means "botanical garden." This adds to the narrative aspects of the poem--first, it reminds the reader that the poem, while in English, takes place in Italy, and second, it is indicative of the common tourist tendency to add in phrases in the local language to appear knowledgeable about the foreign culture. Given the fact that the speaker is certainly still an outsider, the reader can question the authenticity or accuracy of the speaker's analysis of Italian history, art, and culture. Applewhite's use of Italian terms fits with the overall scheme of the poem, since there are other terms that pertain to Italian architecture throughout.

An image in the first stanza provides a vivid picture of Italian tourism: "kamikaze scooters nip at the heels of tourists." This image is especially interesting because it challenges our general connotation of "kamikaze." When I read "kamikaze," my first thought is the Japanese suicide planes in World War II--and this is much more severe than scooters nipping heels, which while not benign, is a much more playful image. The combination of the violent, planes-going-up-smoke image and the more happy, playful image of heel-nipping makes the reader consider the image with more care. I think that this is an effective strategy when composing poetry: taking an object, idea, or place that the reader is already familiar with--and then ignoring any preconceived notions about that thing when creating the image--creates more original, thought-provoking imagery. Too often, we are trapped by constraints that will have more written effect when broken.

Another technique that Applewhite uses: when writing about Italy in a historical context, Applewhite has a tendency to use words that while not exactly archaic, aren't used everyday. For example: "Inside, mosaics had glistened, as late sunlight lapped the convexity of the apse." Here, "apse" jumps out right away as being a word that the reader probably doesn't know. It is "projecting part of a building (as a church) that is usually semicircular in plan and vaulted." We can then see that it goes right along with "convex." The combination of the personification in the beginning of the line ("sunlight lapped") and the more formal, technical terms at the end of the line creates a complex image in terms of diction. At the end of the third stanza, Applewhite uses another technical term; this time with less effectiveness, I think--"To adore the precious color and entablature was nearly to believe." Unless his readers are architecture buffs, there is little chance that they know what "entablature" means. It is the horizontal part in classical architecture that rests on the columns. Here, I'm not entirely sure what the connection is between entablature and believing is...it seems like Applewhite could have created the image in such a way that the reader would be more likely to understand it.

Technical terms included in a poem can be a mixed blessing. On one hand, they provide the author a mechanism to precisely describe something. However, the more precise the term, the less likely it is that the reader will immediately recognize it and appreciate its inclusion.