Jump Cabling
by Linda Pastan
(published in Drive, They Said, an anthology edited by Kurt Brown, published in 1994 by Milkweed Editions)
When our cars touched,
When you lifted the hood of mine
To see the intimate workings underneath,
When we were bound together
By a pulse of pure energy,
When my car like the princess
In the tale woke with a start,
I thought why not ride the rest of the way together?
Oh, the layers upon layers of this perfect poem!
There are just 8 lines, yet there is so much going on here!
First, the form. I dislike when poets use a non-traditional form for no apparent reason, and I love when they do so for good reason. Pastan's poem definitely has a reason; in fact, it has 2. This poem is just 1 sentence, so to help the reader take a tiny break for a breath and for internalizing what s/he is reading, we have these 2 columns. They help slow us down a bit. As important, the form fits the content (you know this is one of my "things"). The speaker and the you are separate beings until that last line, where the poet does not break up the line into 2 columns but keeps them together, just as she suggests the 2 people stay together!
Be still, my heart!
Speaking of that, this is an excellent conceit poem (a conceit being an extended metaphor). Or is it?
Is this poem about a woman whose car has conked out and a helpful man comes along with jumper cables and she--like a fairy tale princess--falls in love with the man who came to her rescue? Did they have a fender bender which caused her car to die? Or is this poem a metaphor for a one-night stand (or maybe just regular boyfriend-girlfriend sex) in which the speaker--she--like a fairy tale princess--falls in love with the man in her bed?
Yes to all! The description is certainly what happens when a car is jump-started (where the helpful man came from is not important). But we also have a lot of double entendres, slang, and colloquialisms for sex. The words in this poem are doing a lot of work.
Can a poem mean 2 things at once? Definitely. Does this poem? I think so. Linda Pastan is a poet's poet, so this level of writing is certainly in her wheelhouse.
Either way, it's a love poem: the speaker realizes that "the rest of the way" will be better spent with this mystery man. After Sunday's poem, "Despair," I felt like I owed it to you to find a much cheerier poem. Mission accomplished!
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