Category: Writers Block
My poetry teacher has been for years trying to convince me to try poetry from the point of blindness. I've resisted, thinking that it was bordering on cliche, and that it would fall flat. However, in the latest poem for my advanced poetry class, I put my hand to the task. Here is the result, let me know what you think.
To those who cannot see the rain
By Cody Kirchner
She will come one day, when you do not expect it.
One day as you stand huddled, crying silently to yourself at the loss of a friend.
That friend you silently loved, but who only wanted to peek through the glass.
You were her museum piece, the insect pinned to her blank card for a moment.
Now she’s gone, and you cry at the pain in your pricked wings.
She will come as softly as the rain and take your hand.
She will lead you to a coffee shop where you will both agree and argue.
Agree that Death Cab was right and that glove compartments are inaccurately named.
Argue that cheap champagne tastes better from paper cups.
She’ll drive you home in her blue convertible.
And a year later you’ll confide to her that if you ever got your sight back you’d watch the sunset.
She’ll take you to a field that night with a bowl of fruit,
And as the sun slides into the ocean she’ll put a strawberry to your lips to let you taste the red.
The purple will slide over your tongue in the juice of a grape.
Until the entire sunset is the blackberry wine on her lips as you kiss them.
And the dark that follows the sunset is the jasmine in her hair as you hold her in the grass.
She will laugh when you tell her that her laughter is the babbling brooks that only exist in Disney movies.
She will stay with you when you flinch from sidewalks at a passing truck,
She will understand that you can hear the tires and they block out all other sound.
And as she holds your hand in the dark and you read the years in the braille of her skin,
You will think back on that girl who peeked through the glass.
But you will know then that the tears on your cheeks that day were just the raindrops on your face
The ones you absently wiped away as you rode with the top down in a blue convertible.
This is not a negative response, it is sort of a question.
Why does a person that has been blind all their lives write in terms of color, or visual references?
You have blue, she peeks through a glass, and many other visual things.
You are not the only person I know that has been blind from birth that uses color in writing.
Why, and what does it mean, or maybe how does it feel?
How do you perceive a blue convertible?
Good writing however.
Well, for a number of reasons I think. First, because it is hard to right visualization without color. The truth is that any poet, blind or not, writes for a sighted world, thus color is almost necessary. Secondly, because, though i cannot see color, I still think in terms of color. I still wonder about colors, and it still plays a role in my life. Finally, in this poem, I tried to have all the visual references be attributed to sighted people. The sighted girl peeked through the glass, and the blue convertible was driven by a sighted girl. I don't know if I succeeded in that, but that was my intension. Good question,, and thanks for reading.
Thank you.
Cool. I like it. The fruit in the field at sunset was great.
I also like the part about her understanding that the tires block out all other sound.
I loved it really, my favorite part was where you speak about the strawberry, down to the jasmine. Loved it.
It's interesting. When I think of certain colors I relate them to tastes of things that I know are a certain color. I enjoy reading poetry, because there are so many ways to make it creative. It's not like essays where you have to research several facts, which I don't mind reading and researching but poetry is more enjoyable.
Cody: I believe we blind people have a fairly different understanding of color. It was clear to me in this beautiful poem. I enjoyed it, and will come to it over again. Thank you for sharing! *****
This is a fairly good poem. I like your imagery. It is clearly personal, in ways, and evokes feelings that many blind or visually impaired people might have known. It has a definite male ring to it, but I don't mean machismo here.
My only criticism, if you can call it that, is in construction. It is kind of prosaic, in its way...a lot of words stuffed onto each line. It feels almost too dense, as if you could have plucked a few words, or chosen your phrasing a little differently, to streamline the result. I freely admit, however, that this feeling might be the result of a propensity of mine to write rather simply in poetry, much of the time. I have an innate dislike of the notion that if you throw a bunch of feelings on stacked lines on a page, you can call it a poem and everyone has to swoon about it and agree about its depth. Please don't misunderstand me, as I'm not throwing your effort on the bonfire. I am, at the outside, suggesting that a little polish wouldn't hurt.
Polish issues notwithstanding, I did like the read, and it resonated a little with me. Resonance is always a good thing in art.
I like it. Very intimate. A little bit prone to wandering and meandering, perhaps, but I like it.
Wayne, another perspective on color from a totally blind person's perspective.
I use color as well, mainly as a label for something. So obviously a blue convertible would be different from a red convertible. I understand the curltural meaning for most colors, but it is more of a set of characteristics basically unknowable to me, but one I can at least try and apply correctly. What I get out of it, or other visual experiences, is watching sighted people enjoying it. That is often what a sunset is for me, or a full moon, or a sky filled with stars: other people's responses to it, whether they know they're responding to it or not.
Interesting imagery, Cody, I had not thought of a sunset this way. I used to hear it said was that the best way for the blind to understand a sunset is to listen to the Sunset movement of the Grand Canyon Suite.
Anyway I certainly think this piece was well-written.
I like the imagery. loved the jasmine, strawberries et al. And I too use colour when I write because,it's like you said, Cody; it be a sighted world, so one must adapt. *shrug*
This is just beautiful! I love the imagery and the vulnerability encased in the poem itself. Thank you for sharing such an emotional and seemingly personal piece.
I love the imagery, and the way you combined senses. I loved those specific little fears that a blind person has fitting in there and not seeming like they're actually being pointed out. It is sort of wandery, but I write that way, so I'm not complaining. And I have seen color, can still see a little of it out of one eye, but I hope that I'll still be able to see them through synesthesia if they ever go completely away. I've always had it so I hope I'll retain the memory.