Unwomen- A Duplex Poem
Suggestions- PLEASE and THANK YOU
Hello poet friends and those who love us! I learned about Jericho Brown's "duplex" poem form last fall at a workshop with Padraig O'Tuama in Rhinebeck , NY, I've been practicing writing with this form ever since. I'm in love with it because it gives me a solid foundation. I welcome, plead for actually, your feedback. For those who know this form, have I executed it properly? If not, can you help me correct it? If you don't know the form, do I need to improve imagery? Do most lines do two jobs? Are the metaphors clear? Thanks for any help you can send my way! Camp trains empty near fire scorched treetops Back home men toast, frosted beer mugs clink Back home men toast, frosted beer mugs clink Smoke still rises. Skies still starless black moon nights. Smoke still rises. Skies still starless black moon nights Sunrise ground still glows. Red robed blood still soaks. Red robed blood still soaks barren ash, mud slush land Grey smock fated gender traitors have no shoes. Fated traitors have no shoes. Smocks sweep, ground glows. Back home rich babies babble, Green Sleeves plays. Green sleeves play mama as rich babies babble. Whores walk two abreast to trick watching eyes. Whores walk two abreast to trick watching eyes. Tracks around town remind red robed women Tracks around town remind red robed women Camp trains empty near fire scorched treetops.
Very nice. Just one suggestion, formal. If I recall correctly, Jericho Brown’s duplexes in The Tradition repeat only one line perfectly: the first becomes the last, word for word. All the other lines, while repeated, undergo transformations, many subtle — the change of just one crucial word. Here, it seems you repeat perfectly early on and then go for drastic changes later. The result is that the form feels a bit rocky, off-kilter.
Think about this: when a reader reads the last line of a duplex, echoing the first perfectly, they ought to feel that now it means something different, thanks to the intervening lines. Yet the reader would be hard-pressed to say just when and where in the poem their perspective on that line’s statement changed. The form is performing a little magic trick with transformation.
Don’t revise this one. Write more of them.
I’d love to do a workshop with Jericho. Saw him read once in Atlanta. He held the whole room in the palm of his hand.
I always find this form of poem difficult to read. It seems like you executed it well.