Author’s Note: The Poetry Postmortem is where I take a poem I or someone else wrote and I discuss it in a non-workshop way. I am of the opinion that academics and critics have a tendency to suck the life out of poetry. They talk of “critical eyes”, but they are blind to the heart of a poem.
Maya C. Popa begins The Tears of Things by establishing a location the reader can jump from:
“In a restaurant with mandolins affixed
to the ceiling, which you remembered
visiting at intervals in childhood,
the drive from Stroud into London’s
bright heaving with a hunger more
than an aptitude for hope…”
Location plays an important part with the ongoing mentions of “Stroud” and “London’s”. Personification is a literary device used by Popa to make a familial connection between the speaker and the reader. “London’s bright heaving,” evokes an image of a city buzzing with life. Already we can see the theme of nostalgia coming into play.
“…we spoke of school days, ink stone
dark as grackle, lines for baths
in winter’s thinning light, then fumbled
towards the past that’s part invention,
the town whose mills were powered
by rivers, fields that froze like strangers…”
Further on, Popa utilises simile to propel the feeling of nostalgia. “dark as grackle” plays upon the mind. The most interesting part about this stanza is the notion of how we see places we’re fond of through a sparkly lens. “towards the past that’s part invention” brings T. S. Eliot’s ‘Little Gidding’ to mind. Eliot’s poem is the last of his ‘Four Quartets’, a collection that discusses the passage of time in different ways.
“Dust in the air suspended,
Marks the place where a story ended.”—Little Gidding, T.S. Eliot
Eliot and Popa illustrate the foolish nature of nostalgia, and how it blinds us to the less tasteful reality. Additionally, both have their roots firmly in a sense of place. The rhythm in Popa’s poem is offset by enjambment. Just as a fool’s errand is never smooth, a poem is not without pause.
“…hearing their names called. Weddings
took their cue from funerals, the locals
bouncing home from hedge to hedge,
though not without its charms, you said,
the grouse stone-heavy come July.
A life forged out of spent alternatives…”
The line, “Weddings took their cue from funerals,” makes for an interesting contrast. The path between birth and death is not a straight one. Could the speaker perhaps be comparing this old-town nostalgia to something circular? Our old stomping grounds, while dull, can actually be full of light in a weird way. The speaker feels a fondness for something they once revered, as expressed through the line, “though not without its charms, you said.”
“…enchanting as a liquor brewed by moonlight.
All night, I listened for my cause
in words blue-shifted under longing’s reach
until slow aerated rain began at last,
and we set out in the shadow of an
unnamed thing. We saw, in an absent-…”
In this stanza, the speaker alludes to the waiting for rain to come. In life, we sometimes find ourselves looking to reinforce our negative beliefs. In a sense of irony, a tsunami usually falls upon us. A reader might wonder if the speaker is yearning for a reason to leave a dead-end that has long since been comfortable. “…we set out in the shadow of an unnamed thing,” leaves us feeling just as unsure as the speaker might be.
“…minded wish, a loose stitch, the mind
in the velvet of the matter. No —
it was the sort of seeing that unfastens
the lacrimae rerum, tears of things.
We drowned, not knowing we stood in water.”
In the final stanza, we learn the relevance of the title. The Latin phrase, “lacrimae rerum,” essentially means the tears of things. The two agreed meanings are sorted into the objective and subjective. For those who align with the objective, “lacrimae rerum,” means that our human experience is defined by our sorrows. For the subjective, the term means the universe is capable of feeling our pain, as opposed to being defined by it.
All of this, coupled with the last line, “We drowned, not knowing we stood in water,” alludes to a sense of progress. The speaker has long been in their comfort zone, refusing to see past their necessary pain. Just like Eliot’s poem, Popa conveys the passage of time through the ability to see clearly. The glitter has faded and our speaker can regain control of their life, free from the burden of saccharine nostalgia.
While the usual background context would expand on these points, Popa is quite private, so we must work a little to uncover this poem without our helping hand. For me, this poem is the definition of walking down memory lane. However, as the speaker discovers, it’s important we don’t find ourselves trapped there.
Courtenay's Corner 