Mule by Shane McCrae.

Mule by Shane McCrae

These are from a book of poetry called Mule by Shane McCrae. He has a very odd style on the page. Lots of unusual spacing and uses of the slash mid-line when usually a slash denotes the end of the line. I’ve tried to replicate his formatting as closely as I can.

These fragments look weird, but I will say this: if you read them out loud the rhythm and force of them is really well done. The meanings can be a bit opaque though.

(pg 3)

The marriage bird and flies in the sunlight on the snow/ Between the sunlight and the snow

(pg 8)

I had a lover and a lover and a fine

Lover I had a lover and she was mine.

(pg12)

and we didn’t drink

For fear that we would leave ourselves no water.

(pg 12-13)

We felt our bones disin-

tergrating in the sun and freezing back

Together wrong in the night

(pg 19) On traveling on a foreign train with other passengers:

The farther the train traveled

From home the fewer of

Each other’s words/We understood.

(pg 22)

Half of love is hope.

(pg 37)

We want what we had then we didn’t know

We had it then we didn’t know how far

We’d have to go how much we’d lose

(pg41)

And every child can sing and knows the songs

And you will recognize yourself in the singing

(pg42)

You

Will recognize yourself in the singing you

Will not recognize yourself in the songs

(pg 73) On poetically confusing moths and honeybees:

The moths

made honey of the light to make

Honey they left the light they brought

the honey back/ Or died in the light the light

itself too sweet to leave

I didn’t love or understand this bit until I rewrote it in the margins of the book like this:

The moths

Make honey of the light

(but) to make honey

They leave the light.

They brought the honey back

or (didn’t) and stayed

to die in the light.

The light itself too sweet to leave.

Yes, I rewrite poems in the books they come in. I don’t do this to make them better. Mine is quite worse, but I rewrote it to try to understand what the poem was getting at before it got all fancy as shit about it.

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