No critical comment, this is just hilarious

Didn't expect the poem to move be a poetica, but like Kirby said "you never know what's going to happen."

Love this roundabout way of getting us back to the exigence of the poem; makes for a casual and comedic tone

The speaker's conflict with the history of her family, and the history of the land (or violence that has taken place on the land). A reckoning of past and present.

I think this is the first time in the collection that the speaker is someone who clearly exists within the poem - a first person narration

What an image here, bookended by these visions of calm Bertha waiting for death to take this child and her knowing the joy that would come once he's gone.

When she does invoke figurative language, her verb choices are always surprising. Love the level of sensory engagement with the "cry" of the dishes against the wood.

what a great way to show the longevity of this illness

using racial dynamics of the era to comment on intimacy, loneliness, and distance - uncrossable distance even, like that of death back to life (allusions to WWI), or like the racial lines the divide Roberta and Small John from the poem's White female subject (de facto separation, Small John's avoidance of her touch is maintained to protect himself despite the subject pushing him up against that imagined social wall).

here again, the poet anchors us in a sense of place and home through the speaker's free-indirect; really efficient use of narrative techniques throughout this collection of poems

There's a negative arc of the supernatural throughout this poem, starting at the rabbits foot and leading us here with the overt mention of demons. Is this the mad ramblings of the grandmother or a moment where she taps into deep knowledge?

Might be reaching because of the limited moments of figurative language, but this feels significant. This moment of magic mentioned by the children before the granny is taken by "a spell". Speaks to a childlike hope in magic that we then immediately see spoiled. Magic isn't always what it seems.

a reference to the Black male archetype Rastus; across each poem the poet uses compressed clues like this to create setting and ambiance without letting the language deviate from its straightforward, prose-like plainness. So when we get these hints, for those who see them, the world being built feels that much more vivid and visceral

figurative language through here builds in a really interesting way, culminating in this enjambed line, likening him to a machine and stripping him of humanity in the wake of the two previous lines that suggest humanity.

I love this line, a brief collapsing of the psychic distance to characterize and tell us about this world she inhabits

A meal Violet is not meant to eat

immediate move to characterize the subject of the poem

The narrative nature of the poem carries the abstract themes of racism and power at play here. The reliance on narrative techniques is executed successfully here.

I like this image of the home speaking through it's history: the history of the speaker's grandmother dying here, the history it had before it became a house and was just wood, before it became "wood" in the building material and was just a tree.

Sick line and a nice twist on the "you are what you eat" cliche

I love this word and so does this poem. Second "maw" across this feature I've seen.

A fear of being in the body and anywhere it seems. I'm thinking if this is a comment on the speaker's experience in a Black body? The names those who have been killed as a result of anti-Black violence?

A lovely and haunting end. Only two eyes to kind the dwindling days. Leaves me with a sense of resign - the end is coming, sort of vibe.

Here again, a pendulum kind of movement that is both never steady in its movement but steady in its pattern of moving

A return to center, to place.

Love this line, hits at the fragility of the speakers own nerves and of nerves in the face of war/violence

A focus on connection and cycles is happening, this isn't the first occurance even only three stanzas in.

Truly a boogeyman figure. I think the myth of Ostrander is built up and progresses really well throughout this essay. We buy into the myth and are equally disgusted and amazed at the stories surrounding this boy.

The sentence variation through here really conveys the uneasiness of the narrator in the scene

This brief interjection from the now narrator feels very controlled. I'm wondering about the decision to delay grounding readers in this physical kind of way in the now. Timing heightens the turn in tone - somber - here.

Unsurprising to end on this note.

Another nameless woman whose ideas are more valuable to Lasalle than her identity. And from a narrative perspective, I understand bombarding an essay with named players can slow the momentum and misdirect attention away from the point or main message. But Lasalle routinely introduces women in the narrative whose ideas are not related to the matter at hand, routinely introduces women in the narrative who are feel as though they only appear so Lasalle can comment on their character - I'm thinking of the medical student described as "chirpily" speaking, the "pretentious" PhD assistant professor who Lasalle assumes handles paperwork. Why are these women included if not just to name them chirpy and pretentious?

Pretentious how & in what ways? All we know about her is that she was more qualified than Lasalle admitted to being. I wish we got more scene work in this essay, because as a woman reader it's honestly just hard to believe; is she pretentious our surrounded by less qualified men in the same position as she is? Interestingly, she is nameless as well, and Lasalle gives this kind of dismissal of her to readers - mentions her and her PhD, but shrugs off her contributions as clerical/secretarial - which is a full assumption on his part rather than fact.

See what I mean?

The way Peter Lasalle writes about women is wild. Women seem like objects in the world he writes about and he frequently boarders on admitting this. The first woman in this essay is a naked, nameless woman on a poster. The women in the essay from last week, likewise, are mostly nameless. Only "suitable" women get names, and in this case Paley is brought in to "achieve at least some acknowledgement of needed balance" to the men on the panel.

Sad considering the job prospects for those of us in this situation now: 500+ PhD and MFAs all applying for the same 2 positions and selling our plasma to keep the lights on. Truly a different time.

This focus on call and response feels like a helpful worldbuilding detail but also feels like a mirror of Tim's beliefs about Ethiopia being mirrors of his parents' beliefs about the place and people.

The use of negatives to paint the physical space and unpack the context of this family's journey until now is compressed and efficient.

I'm not familiar with Aragon, but the shout out to Borges I think help's capture LaSalle's point of some non-corporeal plane at work; some "metaphysical" as he says, or perhaps ontological draw back through the streets to a specific place that haunts him on a level he is unaware of until he finds himself returned to that place - physically or mentally.

fragile like temporary companionship in an oversized apartment in Paris; or the health of a good friend; or like the relationship between street peddlers and the police

This push and pull between the isolated nature of this kind of writing and the want for companionship is real - and I love the way he describes this train of thought: "dangerous thinking".

This reveal I think speaks to the Howland family's need to stay relevant - at least from the grandfather's perspective.

Feels relevant for the family - who played a critical role in the founding of this place but are finding themselves now living nearly outside of it as it's been over taken by seasonal yacht-club cronies.

Here it is again - that tendencies to ignore things going wrong. Does not bode well for the writer or the Howland men

This echoes for me the idea of things this family doesn't talk about. There characters in this family are all careful with their speech, when things fall out of place - like the undercooked crab cakes or the evidence that John has snuck a drink - they actively avoid discussing it. A family of people who look the other way makes for easily supplied tension in scenes like this.

Again, that sense of being a fish in a bucket.

The goldfish feels like a really smart symbol across the piece so far. In a world of seemingly constant surveillance and ever-present threats I think I would feel like a fish in a bucket also, always wondering "when will it be me that gets plucked out?"

The film, the fish, this "longest chat" are all fleeting moments. Kind of emotional liminal spaces that the narrator is already on the other side of. Interested in seeing how this throughline developed and crops up again throughout.

The economy of language through this opening paragraph is next level. A scene set. A family in focus. Acute and chronic tensions introduced. Conflict rising. All in less than 200 words.

Kazuo has broken Shinji's fantasy, and this fantasy is what he must leave behind. The protagonists characterization throughout this piece is really fascinating. We meet him as a man of inaction, who lives on assumptions (assuming the outcome should he challenge his firing, assuming his wife had stopped her affair) and fantasy (idealizing Yumi and her family, the infantilization of Kazuo), and in this moment he cannot see that it is the fantasy he must leave behind. This aspect of character is so tied to his identity he assumes he is the one being left behind.

Another "unintended". This lunch. And it's his family that Aiko leaves behind.

Kazuo and his family's home is Shinji's unintended place. Through Shinji's eyes, the family is presented to readers in an almost idyllic light, with hints of some tension at the edges (Aiko's focus on work over family, Kazuo's "incident"). Yumi - of course - is the most idealized through the prose.

Better than Shinji knows himself it feels like. Same could be said with his wife. Shinji's nonresponse here echoes his reaction with his boss. That is why she chooses now. She sees Shinji for what he is.

The thought of her being relegated to the same status she places on the native Egyptian people infuriates her

This harsh shift in topic feels like further support for Audrey Dae's claim regarding the previous sentence.

starkly contrasts the above "[British] men who'd lost arms or legs in the desert battles, or been blinded, poor things"; dehumanizing and colonial at its core

Shirley uses second person to normalize this. She doesn't want to think about it. But neither do you, which is easier for her to say.

I really like this line, no critical commentary but really enjoying the economy of language here.

This I think encapsulates this idea of "strangers in a foreign land" that's we've seen explored so far, but the image of white british nannies going to see white actresses at an Egyptian theater, complaining of "picking something up" after discussion of the German invasions of Africa points to a tone-deafness in the narrator and I think careful plotting by the author.

Considering the first three paragraphs, the tone of the exposition so far has felt very conversational and especially here I pick up a feeling of polite gossip. This feels how someone would retell a story to a girl friend.

Echoes the "never been to Suez" above and I'm wondering if this will be a story about going into unexplored territory?

The tone feels controlled and intentional. There are decisions being made to specifically delay the exposure of information and the result is a slowly forming image, kind of like something very pixelated becoming higher and higher resolution.

This reads as a story about a man who needs this relationship to feel worth something, to have a purpose. To feel like his protection makes him a man. In the most vulnerable time of Hideo's life, Shuhei decides to reenter it and reconnect. I guess the ending can be read a bit lighter, but I read it as another, final chance for Shuhei to "play protector", a last chance for him to use Hideo for validation.

He clings to this power dynamic, the only thing he feels he is superior to Hideo in. It's a matter of pride and a fulfilling of roles that Shuhei decided were unchangeable in childhood.

But as we've seen from Shuhei so far with the water incident early on, the fear of what might happen (or the power of imagination) can corporealize in real, intense emotion.

A mirror for the "offenses" Hideo has committed against Shuhei.

This feels like it can be extended to violence. Small war. Like that between school aged boys. His focus on fighting has left Shuhei destitute, begging for millet and selling his wife's clothes.

Lack of quotations for dialogue. For me so far, feels aesthetic. Kind of like how someone might orally retell a story.

This is the story, how people navigate leveraging power when power is slim and distributed against your benefit. What does "power" look like for people so deeply exploited and marginalized.

Sad and telling

More flower imagery, specifically more details about cutting flowers. And paired with the reasoning "so they could grow" is especially chilling here.

Her father gets to indulge in childish things almost as a treat while his daughter is robbed of her and while he robbed another girl (his wife) of hers also.

Again, small grasps at "power".

Clinging to crumbs of humanity, the narrator and her mother know this is wrong on some level and let it continue uninterrupted. A passing and perpetuating of sexual exploitation across generations.

She desperately clings to her girlhood and I'm wondering if the meaning of the child marriage is a conceit with an emerging meaning: This expectation for girls and women to take care of men? To perform for them even as girls?

Narrator is constantly turning back toward girlhood. This decision by the author to butt evidence of the narrator's age up against discussion of her child-marriage creates a steadily escalating sense of unease. Something that can be seen here in this exchange.

This feels ominous and I think is a strong objective correlative. Our narrator wears her innocence on her sleeve and loses it as she engages in play.

Like the stories Coco and Mimi tell Jade, this feels like a beacon to readers highlighting the themes of façade, performance, and pretending not to see.

The allure of fantasy that Coco and Mimi offer to Jade - the only "non-working" girl in the Barbershop - speaks again to community and their delicate grasp on security. For now.

Economically used detail to show not just the financial situation of our character and the setting - Buji Town - but also to characterize Jade as someone who values companionship.

The way Wu utilizes language to anchor us in place so immediately is efficient and beautiful. We get the place, the ambiance, and the chronic tension - government teardowns are happening and seemingly coming for this place. The environmental worldbuilding happening in this entire paragraph is just chef kiss. We get to know this place intimately through these snapshots of details. That we don't get anchored to a characters here results in a deeper immersion for readers.

The racing thoughts of BRB translate well into characterization. She's the kind of person to run away to find her calm.

The use of language to characterize the narrator indirectly here is really effective. Through her sporadic thoughts we pick up on the anxiety of our close third narrator, or the anxiety/chaos of the setting.

Wilson's inability to recognize the fragility of things feels highlighted in this anecdote about the ferry + the ferrywoman, and is directly linked to his refusal to mourn or act or accept his situation.

Similar to how Wilson refuses to acknowledge his financial issues and drinking, he takes away his children's opportunity for acknowledgement. He understands "coping mechanisms" as shown earlier in the story with Stephanie's assumption of the worst as a result of instability in their household. But he can't see that this reaction is similarly triggered by instability brought on by Wilson's drinking. He mentally distances them from being touched by his financial situation, his drinking, despite knowing they both directly impact his children.

a good description to what Wilson is doing now with his finances. A "farce" of a trip that will financially ruin him to regain some semblance of his once-united family.

The free indirect we have gotten up to this point gets pit up against Belinda's call out and the result is not just a deeper understanding of their familial structure/roles, but it deepens the psychology of Wilson and for me the emotional resonance of Wilson's choices. He comes off as deeply troubled by his injury, the drinking to cope, and willing to make manic financial decisions. He's in delusional spiral, and this call out from Belinda is a challenge he chooses not to let stop him. It's deeply sad.

This feeling of not really belonging permeates through from the narrator's present day retrospection. And while the child narrator seems aware of this, the implications are something that I think only the adult narrator really understand. And the gap between the two lends a sadness to the overall tone.

We see the narrator again and again trying to emulate his father and it creates a sort of split within the narrator. The Now narrator knows his father is a liar, that he's on the come-down in comparison to his father at the height of his career. And watching the Narrator reflect on how much he tries to copy his dad, before realizing his father's flaws, leaves a kind of bittersweet feeling behind as I read.

The story offers a kind of traditional coming of age story at the beginning: a teenager is planning on having sex for the first time - the ultimate "right of passage" in her eyes. But what unfolds instead is a story about what it means to "come of age" as a girl, and one that explores lines between wanting to be wanted/seen and the danger this places girls in. This is why this lingering on the roof works so well as an ending and why, I think, we begin the story where we do. With her parents who very clearly see Annie, they see her tricks and her lies and say nothing. She doesn't know she's seen already, and is grappling with the reality that being seen can take different forms.

What a line to subvert our expectations and steer us toward what Annie's story is focused on. Her complicated feelings about this particular part of their exchange haunt her. She wants to be seen but she's also afraid of what it means to be seen as a girl. This internal struggle, and the danger this struggle often brings young women and girls is at the core of this story.

Way's close third does well as bringing me as a reader to feel a commiseration and closeness with Annie that until this point I felt myself buying into the self aggrandizing Annie is employing. She gives off an air of invincibility and then this line cuts a hard line between her character and readers. Despite Annie believing, or maybe wanting to believe this, we know this isn't true. We're watching the penny drop before she realizes there it's been tossed.

Way's use of sentence variation and tone here brings a youthful breathless excitement to the narrator and establishes right away how much of a close third this story is going to utilize. On top of that, the description of the perfect day for a teenager - a day when they're getting away with something - reminded me a bit of Jackson's "The Lottery" and the calm before the store opening she employs.

Test.

I feel like this cuts right at the core of the story: a coming of age that shows the adolescent war of wanting to be seen and not being ready to be seen and the danger this internal struggle places girls in. She questions herself and her intentions and doesn't know how to feel at the Man's dismissal of her; he steals her rejection from her and she spirals as the thought of the social consequences but also the real fear she feels in the aftermath.

What a line and a way to subvert our expectations. I hadn't noticed really until this line the level of self aggrandizing Annie is participating in. No more than any other 15 year old narrator I'd suspect, but this line highlighted it for me in retrospect. It adds to the voice of the piece, her conflicted feeling about his comment and her fear, mixing and pulling at different parts of her character.

The the tone radiates from the prose and is in such sharp contrast with my interpretation of Annie's situation. Way's use of language throughout has this effect of pulling me in fully, feeling what the close third - what Annie - is feeling and then so quickly rips us away from that closeness and commiseration she establishes in these sections. This line about being in "complete control" hits that much harder because, obviously, we know this isn't and couldn't be possibly true. But we hope.

There's a breathlessness here that mimics youthful excitement. The way Way uses sentence variation to establish a very close third POV works efficiently not only to tell us about Annie, but about the world she inhabits and, for me, also sets up an ominous sort of vibe. Like a calm before a storm.

The way this line pulls us into the negative space is really interesting. This interruption from the older "now" version of June who is narrating. The dip into direct address, while sudden, feels like a gulp of air.

An unspoken but understood distance.

There's an underlying sense that this is a coming of age, and that the exposure to people different than the narrator is a kind of removing of a veil, an opening of eyes to something in front of her but that until now (or rather until soon) she has not been able to see.