Close by Carol Ann Duffy?

Question

Has anyone done this? I'm not that fond of poetry; I can tolerate abstract stuff, I just don't like people writing implicitly. Today in class everybody was given a poem to look at,and the teacher gave me the 'hardest one' (her words, and entirely justified). This is the most impenetrable thing I've ever read. I had some ideas but all I got from her was a condescending, 'Yeah, it might be, but..."

http://www.prisontalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31737

Answer 1

This is pretty simple really. You just have to have been exposed to this kind of thing, and being a writer helps too. Remember, a published poem is not a “perfect thing”, so when you interpret it, you have to believe in the poet. Maybe it’s a lousy poem! But we’ll assume the poet was “perfect” and try to interpret her artistic endeavor here.

This subject of this poem is “knowing oneself”. Why? “to stare at our heart” means to examine your heart, and your heart is pretty much you, or at least it is more you, most would say, even than your brain! Also, the author hears two voices (two children). That means there is not one clear voice (giving here the meaning of her life). This poses a dilemma. She must decide which one or a combination of the two most closely approximates reality, or at least how she will best choose to understand herself. But she is confused. She says, “I hear a story [which she does not understand]… You know the truth.”

“Lock the door.” I would say this means, this is serious, this is confidential, this is critically important, and this is final … stuff like that.

“I hear a story told in sleep in a lost accent.” The two children speaking are probably her self, her memories of herself in childhood: that’s the most obvious choice. To allow them to be complete strangers would relegate their words to meaninglessness. So they are her speaking to herself, which we all do. We all speak to ourselves. It’s a big part of what makes us human. The upper (cognitive) and logical, rational brain perceives and monitors the emotional and spontaneous thinking processes. The voices speak in a lost accent. That means that she can’t understand them any more. “Lost” means once had, but now gone.

Stanza 2: “Undress” means get naked in the sense of getting to the naked truth about herself. She is speaking to someone who dominates her and makes her feel helpless. “Dress again. Undress,” indicates how lost and hopeless she feels, because the other has control: she might as well go through the cycle of trying to understand herself (undressing, or baring her inner thoughts and heart) because nothing has come of it so far, and she is, at the point of writing this poem at least, still lost and confused.. But, after all, that’s why she’s writing the poem, to try and find herself in the process of writing the poem also. Art forms are always autobiographical. You can understand them better if you know this. The artist interjects hem or herself into everything they create, both consciously and unconsciously.  Why helpless? Because this other person understands her, and she does not understand herself. Therefore the other can act decisively, and she knows that she does not know who she is or what she wants or where she is going in life.

“The name of a country written in red on my palm, Unreadable. I tell myself where I live now, …” This is becoming crystal clear now. Country is one of the most important and clearly identifiable symbols of one’s identity. “Who are you?” How would you answer? Depends on the context. You could answer, “I’m an American … and proud of it” In any case, being and American is at least part of your identity, that is, who you are. Why is it “unreadable” to her? She’s just going on to indicate that she is amazed that “written in red” her identity should be so clear to her, but somehow, it is not. “I tell myself”,; this is really good. She starts to tell herself, that is, she attempts to get a grip on herself, but then, what happens next?  

“I tell myself where I live now, but you move in close till I shake, homeless, further than that.” She attempts to define herself, the other steps in, and everything completely unravels, to the point of making her feel ridiculous and helpless. I’m beginning to think that the other person is her “lover”. The reason is the power that this person has over her resembles the power of a lover who does not love her as much as she loves him. So, since about 50% of poems written throughout history are about unrequited love, we have a 50-50 chance of being right by simply guessing! But I think that she actually knows who she is more than we are shown in the poem, but she falls apart utterly, in the face of someone that she is in love with, who does not love her, or at least, love her as much, and it is very common to feel lost in these situations.

The, she comes right out and says it, “Love won't give in.” I think she’s saying, I can fight against this unrequited love relationship, but love follows its own law, and I’m bound to lose; I cannot win against the immutable laws of love. “It makes a hired room tremble with the pity of bells” I think means, “It is powerful”. If it can do this … Love can make “time ache into space.” Wow, powerful and also she’s dancing around the crux of the matter: “time aches” and “her time aches”. Why? She is in love and helpless. But we do not have to say she’s in love. It is just the most probable thing that’s happening here. We can interpret the poem without that aspect.

“, space, wants no more talk.” Here she is saying, there is nothing more she can say. It is a time for either action or silence, but she has said all she can, and “space” or perhaps “the universe” or “reality” is rejecting her words; they are not producing the desired result. On the love theme, she loves him, but she’s not getting anywhere, and she’s writing about the fact that she now realizes it’s hopeless: she has lost her love; she has lost her dream; she has lost her happiness; she has lost what she lived for; she is expressing her dismay, her pain and trying to come to grips with it, speaking to herself, through this poem.

Now it [space – reality, etc.] has me where I want me, now you, you do. This is cryptic. She says space has her where “I want me”. I believe this is a beautiful poetic paradoxical phrase. Why? She wanted to be there, that is, in this relationship, i.e. she herself chose it! And yet, she also does not want to be there, given the outcome of it all. “ … has me where I want me, now you, you do …” the last two words, “you do”, means you have me where you want me; could be translated into: “I’m defeated; you win!”

The final stanza has the words, “The ghosts of ourselves, behind and before us”. Here she is using the word ghost to refer to “spirits” probably. Anyway, the whole phrase about ghosts has to be seen as an idiom. It means that the deeper things in her life, that she used to be blithely unaware of (she was busy; she was happy) have now come out and are free to dance and play in front of her.

“blind, laughing and weeping. They know who we are.” The ghosts know who she is, know her identity, but she doesn’t. She is concluding now, but I get a hint of a twist in this whole poem. I think she actually has come to know herself better, and by writing the poem, i.e. being able to describe her situation, she has actually and somewhat paradoxically or ironically, but not really either, has solved her problem.

She now actually knows who she is and what it is all about; it is unrequited love that tore her apart (from herself and her self-confidence), and she is aware of it, but she is not yet able to confront it directly, head on. She is still too weak. She is at a stage in the journey of life and love where you can begin to see light at the end of the tunnel, but she’s still got a ways to go.

And that’s it! I think … a masterfully written , beautiful poem. As I went deeper and deeper into it here, tears just started welling up in my eyes, because I entered her world (of pain) and therefore also my own. I identified with her pain, because I know my own pain. The poem allowed me to go inside myself again, like watching an old favorite movie, but then emerge again, now a little stronger, because I have shared the intimate life of another. My own intimate life is “confirmed” in the proves, i;e.,  I too have lost in love, and it hurts. But we all have. We all know what it feels like to be rejected. It hurts.

CLOSE by Carol Ann Duffy

Lock the door. In the dark journey of our night

two childhoods stand in the corner of the bedroom

watching the way we take each other to bits

to stare at our heart. I hear a story

told in sleep in a lost accent. You know the truth.

Undress. A suitcase crammed with secrets

bursts in the wardrobe at the foot of the bed.

Dress again. Undress. You have me like a drawing,

erased, coloured in, untitled, signed by your tongue.

The name of a country written in red on my palm,

Unreadable. I tell myself where I live now,

but you move in close till I shake, homeless,

further than that. A coin falls from the bedside table,

spinning its heads and tails. How the h**l

can I win. How can I lose. Tell me again.

Love won't give in. It makes a hired room tremble

with the pity of bells, a cigarette smoke itself

next to a full glass of wine, time ache

into space, space, wants no more talk. Now

it has me where I want me, now you, you do.

Put out the light. Years stand outside on the street

looking up to an open window, black as our mouth

which utters its tuneless song. The ghosts of ourselves,

behind and before us, throng in a mirror, blind,

laughing and weeping. They know who we are.