[Teach-poetry] What & How: "Dusting"

[Eric Selinger]

One thing I'd love for this list to do is give us a chance to share poems =
that we currently teach, with some notes on how we teach them.

Here's a poem that I taught last week, and that shows up in a lot of =
anthologies these days:  Julia Alvarez's "Dusting."  I used it to talk =
about how poems use repetition and variation, and how by dividing a poem =
into sections and comparing / contrasting the sections (especially how =
they say "the same thing" slightly differently) you can boostrap your way =
into all sorts of interesting observations.

DUSTING

Each morning I wrote my name
on the dusty cabinet, then crossed
the dining table in script, scrawled
in capitals on the backs of chairs,
practicing signatures like scales
while Mother followed squirting
linseed from a burping can
into a crumpled-up flannel.

She erased my fingerprints
from the bookshelf and rocker,
polished mirrors on the desk
scribbled with my alphabets.
My name was swallowed in the towel
with which she jeweled the table tops.
The grain surfaced in the oak
and the pine grew luminous.
But I refused with every mark
to be like her, anonymous.

In the first stanza there are a series of names for what the speaker did:  =
"wrote my name," "crossed
/ the dining table in script," "scrawled / in capitals," and finally =
"practicing signatures like scales."  Each variation is slightly different,=
 both in noun and verb; each reflects a different aspect of the speaker's =
character (aspiring and expansive in the second, still child-like in the =
third); the last underscores the way in which she sees herself as an =
artist-in-training, not only because she's practicing her signature (how =
she'll sign her work), but also because it's the first simile in the poem, =
showing her an artist with language, and the simile brings in another art =
(music).  This range of repetitions contrasts with the single, cacophonous =
description of Mother "squirting / linseed from a burping can /=20
into a crumpled-up flannel."  (I love the off-rhyme of "squirting" and =
"burping" here, and how it falls apart in "crumpled-up"--the final =
trochees around that "can," & how "can" gets crumpled into "flannel.")

So stanza one is a simple contrast between young-artist daughter and =
utterly different Mother, who neither understands nor has any real =
connection with her daughter's actions.  Stanza two, though, gives us "the =
same thing" with more complexity, both emotional and linguistic:  it's a =
repetition and variation of the first:

She erased my fingerprints

[a new name for her, for her actions, and for the "name," etc., being =
removed--fingerprints are metonymic for the body, which suggests an =
erasure of self, not just of letters]

from the bookshelf and rocker,

[my students always delight in explaining why it's these two pieces of =
furniture--they get to show off how they've learned to read symbolism, =
sometimes to excess!]

polished mirrors on the desk

[ah!  a new rep / var of the mother's actions, as "erased" turns to =
"polished," which is an act that brings beauty, not just erasure; and she =
polishes "mirrors on the desk," so that the desk, where writing takes =
place, turns into something that reflects her or anyone who beholds it, =
multiply; this line also gives the grace of shapely, figured language to =
the Mother's action--I take it that she means "polished the desk until it =
reflected like a series of mirrors")

scribbled with my alphabets.

[Back to a child-like version of what the speaker did--as she considers =
her mother's art of polishing, her own seems merely a sort of scribbling =
with the raw materials of language, not "signatures like scales."   Rep / =
var of nouns and verbs for the speaker here.  End of sentence,  which =
tells us this stanza will not be just one sentence, two characters, as the =
first was.]

My name was swallowed in the towel

[Back to the original noun, =93my name,=94 and a new variation, figurative,=
 risky, on what=92s happened to it:  =93swallowed=94 [like Chronos did to =
Zeus, maybe?  In any case related to =93burping=94 in stanza one] in the =
towel [a sort of defensive way NOT to blame the mother directly anymore]

with which she jeweled the table tops.

[Another, even more elegant and artistic and figurative version of the =
mother=92s actions, =93Mother followed=97she erased=97she polished=97she =
jeweled,=94 whose sound picks up and revises =93swallowed,=94 easing its =
tension; the alliteration here another version of the mother=92s artistry =
captured by the adult speaker-daughter-poet.  Then this apotheosis:

The grain surfaced in the oak
and the pine grew luminous.

[Two lines=97the sentences are coming in couplets now, which is to say =
pairs, like mother and daughter=97in which neither mother or daughter is =
named or blamed or active, although we =93map=94 mother and daughter =
variously onto the two trees; =93the grain=94 is like the =93signature=94 =
of the tree, but organic, inerasable; it WILL surface, no matter what, as =
the light that nourished the pine WILL glow forth, given the proper =
polishing; lovely new sounds here, with the long =93u=94 assonance =
replacing the alliteration, and =93surfaced=94 rebutting the earlier =
=93burping.  The rhythms here are different, too: iamb trochee anapest / =
pyrrhic spondee dactyl.  Not a repeated foot in the couplet!  Here is the =
mother=92s art at its finest, in some sense: each thing simply shining =
forth itself, distinctly, captured by the daughter=92s loveliest language. =
 So why doesn=92t the poem end here?]

But I refused with every mark

[Wonderful spell-breaking =93but,=94 wonderful reassertion of iambic =
rhythm, the =93u=94 of =93refused=94 picking up and throwing back the =
languid =93grew luminous=94 even as monosyllabic =93mark=94=97not =
alphabet, not fingerprint, not even name, just =93mark,=94 which is also a =
male name & part of the clich* =93making her mark=94]

to be like her, anonymous.

[Not even her title shows up, =93Mother,=94 just =93her=94; another =
Latinate polysyllable to rhyme with and resist =93luminous=94; an echo of =
Woolf=92s observation, no doubt, that =93anonymous was a woman=94; hence a =
poem about two conflicting versions of female artistry, rather than, as =
the first stanza suggested, a poem about artistic daughter versus =
controlling, burping, repressive mother.]

More to be done, as always, but that=92s a sketch of what I do with this =
in class=97and my sense is that it could be done from late elementary =
school on, no? =20

Anyone else have a poem to share?

More soon,
EMS=20