Poetry for All

Transcript for Episode 8: Toi Derricotte, ÒThe MinksÓ

Abram: 	

Hello, IÕm Abram Van Engen, an English professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

Joanne: 	

And IÕm Joanne Diaz, and English professor at Illinois Wesleyan University.

Abram: 	

And this is Poetry for All.

Joanne: 	

This podcast is for those already love poetry and for those who know very little about it.Ê

Abram: 	

In this podcast, weÕll read a poem, discuss it, learn from it, and then, read it one more time.

Joanne: 	

Today, we are very glad to have Carl Phillips with us as our first guest on the podcast. Carl Phillips is the author of numerous acclaimed poetry collections, including _Speak Low_, _The Rest of Love_, and _From the Devotions_, all of which were finalists for the National Book Award, _Quiver of Arrows: Selected Poems_, which was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award, and _The Tether_ which was a winner of the Kingsley TuftsÕ Prize. His most recent book is _Pale Colors in a Tall Field_. Welcome, Carl.

Carl: 		

Thank you for having me.

Abram: 	

With Carl today, weÕre going to be talking about a poem by Toi Derricotte called ÒThe Minks.Ó And just some quick background here first: Toi Derricotte is the author of award-winning volumes of poetry as well including, _Natural Birth_, _Captivity_, and _The Black Notebooks_. With Cornelius Eady she co-founded Cave Canem, an organization committed to promoting the work of Black poets in America. Her collection, _I: New & Selected Poems_, was published last year. Carl, would you be willing to read ÒThe MinksÓ for us?

Carl: 		




Yes, IÕd be glad to. [Please see the Poetry Foundation website for ÒThe MinksÓ: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42872/the-minks]

Abram: 	

So good. Carl, when you teach this poem or talk about this poem, what is it that you...that draws your attention to this poem, and what do you think people should notice is happening?Ê

Carl: 		

Well, one of the things I point out to students is how this is a...letÕs call this a stychic poem. It has no stanza breaks; it's all one long stanza. And, it's also a narrative poem for the most part, telling a story, and I think the challenge of a poem thatÕs all in one stanza is how to pace the information out for your reader. The same with a narrative poem, how to pace the episodes of the story, especially when you donÕt have stanza breaks to make that happen. So, IÕm interested in how this poem has, I donÕt know, IÕd say three, maybe four movements, and it works very subtly. It seems to me that the firstÉmaybe twenty some linesÉtell the story, the basic story of, there were these minks that the father kept with this family. But thereÕs a shift. The first shift that happens is in the simile, ÒMy uncle would lift the roof like a god / who might lift our roof.Ó And thatÕs the moment when the minks are aligned with the family members, and so we can start to make an equation that the minks and their little house are kind of like the family members in their own home, and the father is equating with the gods. So he has great power, not over, not just over the minks, but over the family. So fine. Then, we get the next movement where heÕs looking for some of the escaped minks, and he describes them as wild; never trust them. But that line to me, means something so much different now that I start to think that the minks are kind of like the family. Does it mean that the fatherÕs children are wild? They should never be trusted? And suddenly, we move from there to the speaker. Before it was Òwe,Ó the ÒweÓ plural of the family. But suddenly an individual speaks up and we have Òevery afternoon when *I* put the scoop of meat out.Ó So, I think thatÕs another movement. And what IÕm interested in there is how the ÒIÓ appears right after weÕve been told the minks are wild. So that juxtaposition for me suggests that the speaker is wild as wellÉdoesnÕt conformÉand itÕs interesting how the minks respond to the speaker there. ÒIÕd call to each a greeting. / Their small thin faces would follow as if slightly curious.Ó Before, the minks always ran away or hid themselves from the family but now they speak. They come out to the speaker as if they recognize something of themselves. So again, itÕs another aligning of the speaker with the minks. So when the minks arrive the next movement is, they've been slaughtered and turned into trophies, and I feel like this is where the poem becomes about so much more than just, just a father who raises minks and gets them turned into trophies, but...something is being said about family life and the power that fathers have over family members, the risk of being a child who maybe is wild or doesnÕt conform, and itÕs...nothingÕs said, itÕs not this, like, summation. But itÕs a poem that provokes. It seems to just tell a story, but it provokes further thought about, what do we mean about family? And power? And how are structures, I suppose. Who owns whom? So all of that comes out, and to me, one of the most magic parts of the poem is how it switches from being a narrative poem. At the very end, it becomes sort of a meditative poem, where it moves into this abstraction and starts talking. It hasnÕt been abstract throughout. ItÕs just all very concrete details of story. But then we have this moment where he blows on the hairs and we see the skin beneath as Òthe shining underlifeÓ and suddenly the soul is being brought up: the shining of the soul is like this. And it gives us each character in beauty. I guess I love a poem that resonates like this at the end where it doesn't conclude so much as give me something to start thinking more about like, whatÕs the relationship between the skin and the soul? And itÕs saying something about whatÕs hidden beneath. We saw what was hidden beneath the roof of the mink house, and thereÕs whatÕs hidden beneath the walls or behind the walls of a familyÕs house but also something thatÕs hidden beneath the exterior, the fur, of the minks. And so, beneath the fur we have the skin and presumably beneath the skin, the soul. ItÕs all very...itÕs much more complex than it seems, and I love a poem like that. As you can see, I canÕt stop talking about it.Ê

Abram:		

[Laughing] Yeah, no, thatÕs great! I mean, itÕs amazing to me the levels of interior and exterior that go all the way through this poem. But as we get to the end there, I mean, one of the things I notice about what youÕre saying even as it gets more abstract, it sort of ends on this philosophical point. It also ends on an individual point. So in the beginning of the poem, we have a lot of Òthey,Ó Òthe minks,Ó theyÕre all just this big group of things.

Carl: 		

Uh-huh. Mm-hmm.

Abram: 	

And at that moment when we turn to the ÒIÓ that youÕre talking about, ÒIÕd call to each a greeting,Ó and thatÕs where we first get the word, Òeach.Ó

Carl: 		

Yes.

Abram: 	

So they become a kind of individual and that we return to at the end, when it says, Òthe shining of the soul, gives us each / character and beauty.Ó TheyÕre not just not just this composite mass of things. Each oneÉ

Carl: 		

Uh-huh.

Abram: 	

...is an individual. Each one has character. Each one has beauty.Ê

Carl: 		

Yes, and I also notice, looking at that next to last line, with the word ÒusÓ...before the words ÒweÓ and Òus,Ó earlier in the poem, they referred to Òwe, the family members.Ó But by the end, the ÒusÓ includes the minks and human beings. AndÉ

Abram: 	

Yeah.

Carl: 		

...each of all of us. And so, itÕs all living things. ItÕs a lot of movement back and forth between groups and individuals.Ê

Joanne: 	

You know, as I think about the movement that youÕre describing, Carl, I love what youÕre saying about the subtle shift from a ÒtheyÓ to an ÒIÓ to a Òwe,Ó and if we look at the beginning of the poem as well, thereÕs just a simple fact that I find astonishing. ÒIn the backyard of our house on Norwood, / there were five hundred steel cages lined up.Ó There were so many of them! Just the sheerÉ

Carl: 		

Uh-huh.

Joanne: 	

...quantity, the number of these animals that were living in the backyard is amazing to me. And to think of each of them having this distinct life in captivity and the relationship that the humans have with them is extraordinary from beginning to end.

Carl: 		

Yes. I agree.Ê

Abram: 	

And I think itÕs appropriate to read the epigraph that starts the book, _Captivity_, that she begins with is, ÒBut even when I am at a loss to define the essence of freedom, I know full well the meaning of captivity.Ó And then this poem takes us into that. And whatÕs interesting...so in an interview with her, I noticed, they asked her whether she thinks at the level of collection, when we put poems together, theyÕre not just single individual poems, but what is their relationship to one another across a collection.Ê

Carl: 		

Uh-huh.

Abram: 	

And she said, I think on the level of collections she says, in a way, theyÕre each a sort of mass. Uh, thereÕs an introit, thereÕs an offertory, thereÕs a communion, thereÕs a blessing. And she says, I think that pattern from childhood is in me. And so if we think of this as one of the first poems, or the first poem in the book,Ê_Captivity_, itÕs intrinsic to this question of what the epigraph is really talking about which is, itÕs hard to define freedom, but I have known, uh, captivity.Ê

Carl: 		

Yes. I...yeah, IÕm looking...I have the book in my hands and IÕm thinking about how ÒThe MinksÓ is the first poem. The next one is called ÒBlackbottomÓ which is a neighborhood, and the next one is ÒPalm from my Father.Ó The next one is ÒMy Mother Dressing.Ó So, just to say that, yeah, itÕs interesting how she opens with this poem that is ostensibly about these minks, but she does make the connection to family. And then itÕs almost like, yes, the introit and then we begin to look at the family members, the neighborhood where peopleÕs families lived. IÕd never noticed that.

Joanne: 	

Mhhh. Yeah.Ê

Abram: 	

Um, could we talk for a moment about individual lines? Cause sometimes you get the questionÉ

Carl: 		

Sure.

Abram: 	

...when you have a, um, a poem with no set rhyme scheme like this one, and itÕs one long stanza, sometimes students will give the question, well what determines where a line should break? Or why a line should break? And there were a few moments, uh, in this poem that really struck me for how they get situated as a line unto themselves. So, for example, just to give one example, when she shifts to talking about the uncle lifting the roof, uh, to look down on the minks, she inserts the one short line, just four words, ÒSometimes one would escapeÓ right in between the lifting of the roof and him going down on his hands and knees to look at them. And so itÕs almost as though the line itself, this one short line of four words, is a kind of escape, uh, built into that action of him lifting the roof and going down on his knees to look at them. ThatÕs just one momentÉ

Carl: 		

Yes.

Abram: 	

...where I thought these line breaks are really doing work for us in the poem.Ê

Carl: 		

Yeah, they are. And I think the opening is very cinematic in that sense. Um, itÕs the wide view lens at first. ThereÕs, in the backyard of the house. Inside that backyard are these cages. Inside each cage is a wooden box. Inside the wooden box, or to each wooden box, is a little roof. So, telescoping. And she does that here with line breaks, so itÕs...how I always explain line breaks to my students is, theyÕre a form of delivering information, and you can decide how much rope in a sense to pay out or to hold back to kind of control what your reader sees.Ê

Abram: 	

Mh-hmm.

Carl: 		

So, yeah, itÕs...youÕre right. It doesn't have rhyme and those things, um, operating, but that makes the line breaks all the more important.

Abram: 	

One other thing I see happening with those line breaks are places where, if you set the line apart, itÕs saying one thing, but then juxtaposed with the next line is a jarring contrast. So, for example, I donÕt know, about ten lines in it says, Òthey knew they were beautiful.Ó ThatÕs a line unto itself. And so you could pull that line out as a line unto itself with a ton of meaning in it. But then if you look at the next line, it says, Òand wanted to deprive us.Ó And so you get one line, Òthey knew they were beautifulÓ and then you get this juxtaposition with the next line, Òwanted to deprive us.ÓÊ

Carl: 		

Yes, itÕs an example of another...because the one use of line break is to do the thing I mentioned about the cinematic control. But another one thatÕs more interesting is where you point out, Abram, where the line misleads us. We...so the line break leads to surprise.

Abram: 	

Mh-hmm.

Carl: 		

Yeah, Òthey knew they were beautiful,Ó and then weÕre surprised that itÕs Òand wanted to deprive us.ÓÊ

Joanne: 	

I loved all the line breaks. I love the way it moves down the page. And I also love what happens inside the lines with sound. So, just after the lines youÕre describing, I love that two line sentence, ÒIn spring the placid kits / drank with glazed eyes.Ó I like the openness of those sounds, really, itÕs so...that image stuck with me a lot in part because the image is so precise and so nicely done, but also the sounds really just elongated my thought on it for a while, you know? And then on the next sentence, ÒSometimes the mothers would go mad / and snap their necks.Ó

Carl: 		

Yeah. You know, those moments you point out, Joanne, are...the sounds slow the reading. I mean, it takes more time to say, Òdrank with glazed eyesÓ compared to Òwould go mad / and snap their necks.Ó AndÉ

Joanne: 	

Yes.

Carl: 		

...so itÕs interesting as a juxtaposition of speed. Or the other part you point out, ÒEach afternoon when I put the scoop of raw meat rich / with eggs and vitaminsÉÓ Eggs and vitamins, I think thereÕs something about the Òn-sÓ and the Òg-sÓÊ that it takes longer to say those words. So, but also thereÕs two lines that have been devoted to what the food is, and then we get this kind of staccato, ÒIÕd call to each a greeting.Ó So, suddenly it becomes metrically speedy.Ê

Abram: 	

Yeah. And thereÕs a lot with the pacing of the words and the sounds of the words. And then, precisely because there arenÕt end rhymes, the internal rhymes then stand out all the more. So, one that struck me was ÒskinsÓ and ÒpinnedÓ near the end. So the Òskins [are] hanging down on huge metal / hangers, pinned by their mouths.Ó And, you know, it draws attention to the fact that these are animals whose danger is precisely because of their skin. I mean, theyÕre wanted for their skin. So it brings, of course, to the fore all these questions of racism, but there with the rhyme, it brings out the violence attached to the skins themselves. And Òpinning by their mouthsÓ is not an accident either. I mean, when we think about...thereÕs no detail that goes astray in a good poem.

Carl: 		

Yes. It's also the only...the mouths were their only weapon. You know, about six lines before that, we hear the father has to wear Ò...gloves / so thick their little teeth couldnÕt bite through.Ó So just the fact that we can talk this long about one poem isÉ

Abram: 	

Right! ItÕs amazing, right? UmÉ

Carl: 		

Yeah!

Abram: 	

...would you do the honor of reading it one more time for us, Carl?

Carl: 		

Sure! [Carl reads the poem]

Abram:Ê

Thank you. Thank you, Carl. Thank you for joining us today, and thank you to the University of Pittsburgh Press for granting us permission to read Toi DerricotteÕs poem, which you can find in _I: New and Selected Poems_. For more information on Toi DerricotteÕs work, please also see the Poetry for All website at poetryforall.fireside.fm.

Joanne: 	

And please remember to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Abram: 	

Thank you for listening, and thank you, Carl, so much for joining us today.

Carl: 		

Thanks! It's a pleasure.Ê