Analysis of Different Poetic Forms
The Torturer's Apprentice is a haunting dark poem about an individual relaying their experience to a trainee torturer. The last ending five words of the first stanza alludes to freedom and the creation of bridges. The torturer believes that he or she will only be free when they manage to mend bridges with the people they are torturing. The ending words are; “day”. “Was”, “free”, “see”, “bridge” and “way”. All these words together reveal the persona’s desire to escape their trade. They note that they “began this journey young and free” (Line 3). It seems like torture does not bring comfort and freedom to the torturer but regret and self-disgust.
The persona contends that even though their nature has been tainted they still have the capacity to find a way to freedom, to get away from the world of torture. The advice they are giving to the apprentice is that torturing people will not bring freedom but will bring one into the darkness and the journey to self-discovery with be long and thorny. The horror of the torture job is revealed when the persona laments that “My chief once said I would someday be free/ If I extracted nails the prescribed way”. This sestina is about an Israeli intelligence operative who is conflicted about their job as a torturer.
At a Supermarket in Auburn
At a Supermarket in Auburn is a free verse poem about the human desire to set itself free from the humdrum of meaningless work. The persona wonders how they got where they were. It seems like they came to this part of the world with the desire to work briefly only to find themselves trapped by the supermarket. Now all they do is dream. The persona notes that they became “the viewer of my dreams./I cross continents,/ stand in line at metro shops/outside the Prado while Spain mourns Franco”. The persona relies on their imagination to escape the supermarket. The poem is free of structure. The stanzas come with different numbers and there is no rhythm or rhyme. The poem is a lamentation of an individual’s challenges with the corporate work.
Dreaming at High Frequency
This poem explores lost youth and a young person’s desire to come to terms with their rebel past. It is a poem about an individual going through an unknown amount of pain as they try to figure out what happened in the past. Everything to them it's now a dream even the memory of their mother. This is an unorthodox poem whose styles borrows from the tradition villanelle poem and adds an amount of free verse on it. The persona is aware that they have been wayward as kids and that their conduct have brought on pain to their mother who “waits courageously/ her faded eyes enfolded in a dream/ of missing husband, children, house”. The narrator believes that the anguish of their mother is a result of something that their father had done. This is the voice of a child who sounds abandoned but is not willing to reconcile with family. The parking lot, the cathedral, the taverns and the open air seem to be better havens for them than home. Their home is now nowhere and they can’t blame anybody but themselves. The persona is well aware of the dangers that await them in the outside world.
Compare and Contrast Sparrow Thread Sestina and The Torturer’s Apprentice
Sparrow and Thread and The Torturer’s Apprentice are two poems riddled with melancholy. They are all written in the form of the sestina. Sparrow and thread is about an individual who wishes and desires for support and comfort. There longing for companion is evident in the first line where they ask, “Suppose this were Firenze and I the Arno/ Would you come to my banks to shed your tears” (Line 1-2). There is evident sorrow in the persona’s voice. The kind of support they wish for is soothing but evidently sad. There is talk about being captive which compares well with The Torturer’s Apprentice. The torturer is more a captive of their work than time or any other longings. He or she is haunted by their past deeds and tells a new recruit that it might not be wise to go down the path of torture since it does not provide respite. One has to find their own respite which is not easy because they have to build bridges. The goal of torture is not to build bridges but to destroy them.
The persona in Sparrow and Thread does have very melancholic wishes and they treat their object of desire and support with disdain. One is hard pressed to think that they actually do not wish for support but the suffering of the individual they are addressing. This is the opposite of the torturer who is seeking to create bridges for both his soul and his victims. The torturer has a more conciliatory than the individual in Sparrow and Thread.
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