Poem as Metaphor

They might as well have been talking about my relationship with Gordon.

The piece of mine that was workshopped tonight was written well over a year ago, and is (was) based on all of the unsettled elements of my relationship with G, the overarching,thematic ones, which are still in place.

The first comment that was made was "something about this poem is so tragic, but I can't put my finger on exactly what it is..." Other comments suggested an inherent formlessness in the piece, saying that it is "hinting at something, but stopping short of saying it outright."

Oddly enough, the class assumed that the author of the poem and her man were lovers, and there was even a place in the language that they collectively took at face value as an indication of us sharing a bed.

By the time all was said and done, there was one part of the poem everyone agreed was the place the poem "happened"; they preferred the concrete ideas from actual memory to the unclear, imagistic ramblings of the speaker, because that is where the man became clear to them... it is a brief section where G's art is alluded to. It makes sense that they saw him unobstructed through the mention of his art. That is where he is clearest to me, and it has always been through our respective art that we understand each other best.

Workshopping always amazes me. How people who know nothing of the facts still get at the truth, because the life of the poem is telling a story... the connotative facts, the subtext.

I took several notes on the piece and have a lot of material to help with revising; I learned what this amorphous friendship looks like to outsiders. Tragic. The poem, the relationship. I'm not sure I know which is which.