Facing It: The Contrapuntal as Resistance
Writing Contrapuntal Poems II
(NOTE: Be sure to read the first entry in this series if you haven’t already!)
The dream figure exited the plane before me at our destination. Passengers were between us; given her wealth and need to impress, she had probably been in business class while I rode in coach. She turned back to wave as she stepped onto the jetway. Her smile was the manufactured kind—unnatural, filled with covert malice. Dream figures are just that: the elements of this bigger dream. I waved goodbye.
In poetry, those moments—liminal or deeply symbolic—can be the hinge where the poem opens or takes a turn. Yet I’ve discovered in writing contrapuntal/column poems that you can create more than one turn—simply by juxtaposing two texts. The theme of my dream was duplicity—the need for some people to cajole to control. Also, how the wealthy—those who fly business or what we used to more truthfully call it: “first class”—become the oppressors, smiling all the time.
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