Forche and Rich, Image and Meter

It might be the MC (middle-class) Protestant in me, but I much prefer Forche's political distance, her role as observer (though close in proximity) and witness, to Rich's sense of embattlement, her speaking so personally to the ways in which she both sees and represents particular movements. The former I think is less aggrandizing, while Rich seems content to speak as if she's multitudes, even when speaking more personally. Both see history and its movements widely, but for me Forche despairs less (maybe its her cynicism that allows this freedom), while Rich grinds and grinds toward the realization of a singular ideal and vision (I mean singular in as broad a sense as possible), where the oppositions sometimes seem rather too clear-cut.

Joanie, your question as to the appropriateness of the image versus “more traditional aspects of verse” for political poetry is really interesting; I’m interested to see if Matt might take this question up more thoroughly, but my answer is a definite yes, I do think it’s more appropriate, though I agree with your implication that these things, image and meter, are in no way mutually exclusive, though I get the point concerning the emphasis of one over the other. Partly I think the image carries more power simply because the metonymic or synecdochical properties of image, where the image achieves by seeming to eschew the mask of form a kind of power and easiness that lends itself to being more readily understood as part of something larger (the ears in The Colonel, for example, don’t require much reader work), whereas the more traditional aspects if fore grounded might compete with the message: one seems to eschew virtuosity by quieting the formal aspects in favor of what one simply sees, while the other pronounces its mastery in the wrangling of the word (again, this is an artificial distinction, but it holds in terms of effect, I think).