Today I will be discussing a poem that has been on my mind almost constantly since I read it, which is Hinako Abe's The Scent of Verbena. What first attracted me to this poem was the interesting shape of the poem, as each stanza is broken up into a triangle. These triangles coincide with the shape of the story and the diction used in each line, as the more important moments of the story being described take place in the narrow parts, and the diction in the wider parts is notably detailed and descriptive, more so than the narrow parts. For example, in stanza 3 Abe writes "his face grew as pale as gorgonzola cheese and as I watched fissures spread across / it like it was going to crack apart, he pulled back and let up a single shriek / like a heron's call" in the wider part, however the narrow part between stanzas 1 and 2 is simply "cold and / dark / at / the / summit" which highlights the contrasting amount of detail.
The lines about the gorgonzola cheese and fissures, I feel as if that is the most important part of the poem. Which confuses me since it takes place at the widest part of the poem, yet it is the most important and descriptive passage. I believe that it is some form of a metaphor, as fissures cannot actually spread across one's face, and the words are not joined with the word "like" eliminating it's identification as a simile. However, once labeling it as a metaphor, it begs the question of what is it a metaphor for? I feel like one one level it is simply describing how when one begins to cry, their face can often shrivel and form wrinkles, or "fissures" made of skin. However, fissure usually implies that it is endless and huge, and the tone of these lines illicit an image as if his face is being ripped apart. Perhaps it is implying that the obviously harmful phrase uttered to him previously ripped him apart internally and it is evident and reflected in his facial expression. These lines could be compared to the climax of the poem.
I don't know what to make of this poem, to be brutally honest. That's the unfortunate circumstance faced when dealing with works in translation. This isn't my first time dealing with them either; in high school, we read "Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi, which is probably my favorite graphic novel that I have read in my entire life, as well as "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman" by Haruki Murakami, which is a collection of short stories translated from Japanese. When dealing with works in translation, it's a common occurrence to not understand the cultural significance that, in the author's eyes, fits naturally with the native language, but is often, as the cliché goes, lost in translation.
Considering Persepolis was translated from French, and I speak a good deal of French, I could most likely read the original and pick up more cultural subtleties that the language would have allowed to be transmitted. However, when it comes to Japanese, I know enough to hold a 5 second conversation and then be completely unable to continue it. I can transcribe it, as I have studied Hirigana and a little Katakana, but of the culture of Japanese writings I know little. However, when comparing Abe's poem with Murakami's short stories, I feel that nature as well as surrealism are both important topics. An example of a surrealist moment in Murakami's works is a short story titled as The Mirror, in which a security guard discovers a mirror in which he sees incredible visions of what seems to be a highly enticing alternate universe, but he is unable to handle the vividness of it and in response smashes the mirror. An example of a surrealist moment in Abe's poem The Scent of Verbena is when the individual with the scaly fingers "grew as pale as gorgonzola cheese" and when "fissures spread across / [his face] like it was going to crack apart" because fissures cannot actually spread across one's face.
Overall, this is not a poem that I will quickly forget, and I feel like it is one that I could work with in comparison of others for deeper potentially future analysis. I hate to sound that formal and prescribed about it, but I can't help it; it's simply reminiscent of my high school habits.
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