Talk about sadness. Talk about finding out Power Rangers was dubbed and the Green Ranger was actually a martial artist. Talk about finding out what Dubs are, cementing your black card, and never finding wet cement to sign. I never leave a mark. I leave marks everywhere. Mark Twain offends me with his rampant use of slurs, though I appreciate the realism. “The Mysterious Stranger” is the only work I will never lose. I can’t even finish the book a second time because the premise freaks me, makes it hard to sleep. Talk about falling asleep only to realize thought may never end; your conscious is a treadmill plugged in and running. What’s the point of one more day if you have eternity in soul? Let’s talk.
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