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“Not Waving But Drowning”
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much farther out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
-Stevie Smith
What I like about this poem is its simple haunting rhythm and the image of the white hand out in the breakers. I like the combination of dialogue that’s attuned to real speech and utter spareness of words, the odd slant rhymes, the lurching meter that nonetheless hits all the right beats. It reminds me of Emily Dickinson. It’s also a poem I connect with personally, which always helps. I rarely need an excuse to feel sorry for myself, and the image of someone drowning and unable to prevent his plea for help from being misinterpreted–well, I like to pretend I understand.
I would apologize for dropping off the face of the earth there, but I doubt that anyone’s actually reading this yet. Suffice it to say that November–and NaNoWriMo–did not exactly go as I planned/hoped. The weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, along with the weeks leading away from it, were challenging, sad, exciting, and difficult.
There was a car accident involving Pete, Blondie’s fencing coach, and three freshman boys who were in the car. Pete was killed, and one of the other boys died two weeks later. One of the other boys came away with a broken wrist, and the last had to have two surgeries but has since been released from the hospital and appears to be recovering well. This has been an incredibly sad time for the team, for Blondie (who was the captain for two years and is still heavily involved as a graduate student), and for me. There were many times at William and Mary that I felt disconnected from the school and the students. My personal growing pains sometimes made it difficult for me to find rewarding friendships, but the team has been incredibly generous and friendly and good to me for the past three years. It is hard to see them so sad.
Work also took a turn for the chaotic last month–between exams and papers and rewrites, I found it difficult to keep my head above water. Thanksgiving was nice, but a bit too short, and it has only been during this week that I’ve been able to return to a somewhat normal schedule that allows me to feel relaxed and confident. I’m remembering why I liked this job in the first place, and that’s good.
I guess that’s all the news that’s fit to print. I’ll try to figure out what to do with this blog at some point.
