Judges thoughts on Jeff Gundys What the Winter Wren Didnt Say: Jeff Gundy’s poem “Something the Winter Wren Didn’t Say” sits its speaker, and subsequently its reader, down in the very first couplet. Yet this poem does not propose a leisurely recumbence on an overstuffed divan. We’re at the Virginia Kendall Ledges at dusk, where the speaker tells us, “Any place to sit will do / because I aim to disobey, to disappear, to wait and listen // till the hard earth shudders open like a touch-me-not.” Gundy then lets rocks transform into “spilled treasure waiting for the dragon,” and even “junker cars rolled downhill toward the crusher.” Readers immediately connect with the evocation of the otherworldly Midwestern backdrop. Here natural formations may be seen as kin to both fantastic creatures and industrial detritus, each possessing an authentic glow. Yet the most remarkable element of this poem is how the wren and the tanager do not simply sit on a branch and serve as part of the scenery. Instead, these birds have a profound stake in the landscape, an ongoing banter, and maybe even an awareness of celestial relationships that elude us mere humans. “The tanager / and the winter wren both want to sleep, but neither is willing // to give up the last word,” Gundy states, suggesting that such repartee transcends the confines of species. “Something the Winter Wren Didn’t Say” culminates with a vivid encounter between moon and sun, perhaps making us blush the next time we gaze up at the sky.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 17:45:31 +0000
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