The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 10/23/08

[BlueIris]

"Hitler's Girlfriend"

I might have been Hitler's girlfriend. Maybe
in a speakeasy the slow clack
of his lighter lifted to my cigarette, maybe Adolph
even had a joke. Once the henchmen
would have impressed me, the unusual
moustache. In my youth I might have borne
any insolence, might have taken the lack
of smiles for a sign of brute
and sexual strength.

And the long climb up toward convincing
the self: all hardships his hardships; I didn't know
whose trouble mattered, whose
regret. O the long journey
toward ordinary kindness.

There were those among the rows of Jews
on the black line of train cars
who were told they were going on holiday; women checking
their rouge. There were those among them

who began to understand: men sat
in the sway, in the dark, dark
pressing through
the night. We sat on our suitcases and wept
like old women.

—Terri Ford

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear BlueIris...

Wow, this is a dark little work...

Not sure I entirely get it...

But I still like it!

Thank you...

:hi:

[BlueIris]

2. The ending introduces some ambiguity to the poem's ambition, I think.

I feel like that last stanza doesn't quite fit with the rest of it.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

3. it is like 2 poems smushed together...

both are dark, though.

[BlueIris]

4. It IS like two poems.

I didn't realize that until after I'd posted it.

[Chorophyll]

5. Hmmm.

She sets up a difficult journey toward love (albeit with Hitler?) in the first two stanzas, then it becomes a different kind of journey in the last two. Some travelers not understanding where they're going, others understanding all too well. Two parts of the narrator's psyche?

Or should I just shut up? :dunce:

[BlueIris]

6. I think that's as good an explanation as any. My guess:

The author felt the need to make the last part of the poem about the victims of the Holocaust so as not to write a poem that in any sense minimizes the true damage Hitler did. I mean, writing a poem which seems to suggest that the speaker's sense of victimization by the Hitler figure is the worst thing the actual Hitler did would look kinda...messed up to many readers.