I’m all about Primone Triplett’s "Bird of Paradise Aubade with Bannock Etching Over The Bed".

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I have to say,  this post may seem like a jumble of everything. I don’t know where to begin in this poem. There are so many surfaces to consider. Elmaz, you advised us to look at poems as different objects—a painting, song,  map, or dance and there may be another one you mentioned, but I am still wondering how to begin analyzing Primone Triplett’s "Bird of Paradise Aubade with Bannock Etching Over The Bed".

The title frames the poem. Before the poem begins we are aware of the placement of images and objects; for example, the bird of paradise, the idea of song and morning in the word aubade, and an etching placed over the object of the bed. We become aware of order and sequencing—that objects and their placement are moving in relationship to meaning.  Our attention is drawn to syntax and diction before the first line is read, and that awareness hangs over the poem like the etching hangs over the bed.

Framing is a critical component as each of the six stanzas is composed into sestets for a total of 36 lines. The lines move from images to thoughts and back to images almost seamlessly until the images and sounds  merge like the notes in a song. However, each line is controlled by rigid grammar that creates visual and rhythmic tension, which builds from one stanza to the next.

The poem moves between a rich array of ideas and forms until it becomes overwhelming. As the poem ends we are left on the edge of breaking apart just like the buds in the speaker's mouth:

               to taste the skin before it brakes open, the bodies newly green,

               bound to root-pact, stem-line, moments before they fall” (35-36).

Triplett’s visceral images ground us in the moment of the narrative; such as the image of the speaker watching the body from the window:

           

              I watched all your muscles connecting up, your body’s parse

               

              of sweat and salt, hollows

between the ribs appearing, then not, around your

breath’s steady reed and thrum. (7-10)

As the physical images locate us visually in the poem they also evoke a sense of complex movement. As the body’s mussels “connect up” we connect  to the body the speaker is watching; however, we also connect through the speaker’s line of vision and thought. We are located in the speaker’s body, but we are also  connected to the body of the poem as the imagery and the musicality of the line unfolds. 

Words such as, sweat, salt, and hollows draw our attention to sound. As the second stanza continues we become aware, again, that the poem alludes to song. The tonal shift in “breath’s steady reed and thrum”(10) reminds us of breath and the form of the poem. Yet, the sound of the word “thrum”  hums between our lips at the end of the line.  When it is read  “thrum” evokes song in our own bodies.

I’m all about this poem. It has a hard beauty that is executed with haunting control. The rhythmic tension abrades the imagery until everything is about to explode like the green buds. The allusions to Leda’s rape where the seed  of the fall of Troy is planted is fascinating when juxtaposed to Bangkok, modern language and t Triplett’s intimate narrative.