Most of Matejka’s works contain a formulaic balance between pointed, veiled sentences that I presume are based in personal history and crafted turns of language. “Do The Right Thing,” for example, summarizes a meeting with director Spike Lee, but contains lines such as “he edited me like my name/ was Pino” and “the missed free throw feeling in my chest.” Spike Lee didn’t literally edit the speaker as if he were a character in Do The Right Thing, but this language shows us how the speaker felt. Matejka likely chose this route, as opposed to saying “he changed the way I felt.” With the “free throw” line, once again, Matejka introduces an emotion often overlooked for poetry, more likely found on a Sportscenter recap. The idea of a missed free throw feeling in ones chest tells us how the speaker feels, but since a basketball game didn’t literally take place, Matejka shows us how the speaker felt.
Kathy Fagan’s strategy in dealing with clichés follows the strategy we are often taught, to inject fresh language into and around the cliché in order to personalize the phrase. Fagan does this every couple of poems, even developing an entire poem off the phrase “a monkey on her back” (2) in "Womb To Tomb Pantoum." This use of clichés makes the diction of Fagan’s poetry very casual and familiar, but the personalization of the clichés makes the specific language pop out with originality. Fagan takes the phrase “’pretty on the inside’” (19)in reference to girls that aren’t stereotypically beautiful and lets it reference specifically “the ones” (19)in "'69." Moments like this make Fagan’s poetry comfortable to an American audience, yet intriguing. If for no other reason, I continue to read Fagan’s work just to absorb how she twists clichés and trite phrases. When you catch one in her work, you expect her to twist the language into something that feels familiar, yet ...
Comments