Dionne Brand's "Verso 49"

Thoughts on a poetry of discomfort.

Verso 49

There were two kinds of books. Books of discomfort and books of discomfort. The books of discomfort said the "you" that you think you are is not the you that you are, and the books of discomfort said you are the you that you are, though, you are also the you that you think you are, which is not the you that you think you are.


from The Blue Clerk: Ars Poetica in 59 Versos (Duke University Press, 2022)

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In an italicized epigraph to an earlier poem in Dionne Brand’s The Blue Clerk, “Verso 4,” Brand writes:

To verse, to turn, to bend, to plough, a furrow, a row, to turn around, toward, to traverse

I think — no, I know — that I am thinking about this poem (which I first read, as I often do, while standing in a bookstore, approximately one foot away from the poetry section, hidden as it often is — in this case, as part of a new Barnes & Noble — in some way-back, far-off corner, where it stands as just a single shelf of often-narrow books, as if you couldn’t fill another shelf, or another shelf, or another shelf, with more) because I recently had the deep pleasure and honor of reading for the first time in a long time the other night, at the Boston Poetry Slam, in the basement of the wonderful Cantab Lounge.

On the train up from New York City, I felt an old nervousness that I hadn’t felt in years, a nervousness that amounted to me sitting in the cafe car, shuffling and reshuffling a too-think stack of new and old poems to read aloud, humming them a little bit to myself, though not too loud to disturb the neighbors, while listening to the same song — Waxahatchee and Jess Williamson’s “Hurricane” — over and over again. Though I write about poems every week, and though, years and years ago, I used to run a reading series, and though, back then, I used to read aloud at other reading series more often, I felt, on that train, a stranger to that old nervousness. I felt anxious and a little bit trembly.

But that night this week at the Cantab, the old nervousness did what it always used to do — it dissipated. One joy of being asked to read was that my feature set occurred at the tail end of nearly two hours of open mic poetry, a scene I’ve mostly been a stranger to in recent years. Though being in rooms full of people reading poems was a steady part of my life for a long time, it hasn’t been the case for the past four years. And I forgot, quite simply, how joyful that kind of solidarity borne out of a common tendency toward poetry can be. I forgot what it’s like to witness people take the risk of modeling vulnerability, or music, or joy, or play, or grief, or anger, or so much else — or all of this and so much else, as well. Standing in the back of the room before my reading, I listened to poem after poem after poem — an act of attention I mostly do individually these days, and in quiet, sitting as I often do by my apartment’s window, distracted, as I often am, by birds.

And here’s why I’m thinking of today’s poem, which is a poem that intentionally plays with syntax, twisting and turning itself upon itself. Here it is again, in full:

There were two kinds of books. Books of discomfort and books of discomfort. The books of discomfort said the "you" that you think you are is not the you that you are, and the books of discomfort said you are the you that you are, though, you are also the you that you think you are, which is not the you that you think you are.

Boiled down, Brand seems to be writing not only into the idea that we are not always who we think we are, but also into the idea that we are who we think we are. But also, perhaps, Brand is writing into the idea that we don’t have a clear understanding, at all, of who we are. What I am drawn to most of all in Brand’s poem is, simply, the fact that none of this — this figuring out, this trying-to-be, this wondering — is entirely comfortable. That, actually, it can be difficult — to learn, to change, to grow, to refuse, to revise, to be, to live, to live, to live.

And what I am drawn to, as well, is that Brand enacts this difficulty, which is a kind of difficulty of living, through poetry. She enacts this difficulty syntactically. It’s part of the poem’s joy. It’s a mouthful. It begins simply, with two terse sentences — one a fragment. And then it launches into the spinning, turning, spiraling discomfort of doubling back and forth between not and quite, between are and are not. Speak the poem aloud, and you’ll find yourself tongue-tripping on the alliterative qualities of it, the t’s of it confusing your tongue, just as the poem’s meaning intentionally confuses itself.

One definition of life, of many: such a confusing thing it is.

One definition of poetry, of many: such a a space to play, or enact, this confusion that this life is.

Funny, that it can be playful to read about discomfort. That’s part of the joy, isn’t it? And that’s part of why I’m thinking of this poem, too.

Standing in that big room earlier this week, and listening to so many poets, I was reminded of something that has less to do with ability and more to do, I think, with desire, or longing, or perhaps, even, sheer will. I was reminded of what Brand models for us in today’s poem — the way poetry performs this discomfort of existing, this difficulty of living. The way it does this time and time again. This is why I love that reminder at the start of Brand’s “Verso 4,” of all the things that a verse — a poem — is: a turning, a bending, a ploughing, a traversing. In a world that so often performs the less difficult work of progressing without reflecting, or of enacting violence without pausing to consider the need for such violence, or of correcting without imagining, or of amassing without stopping, it is a beautiful thing to be in a room with people who do the more difficult and imaginative work of turning, of considering, of looking, of holding.

I think of one of Brand’s poems in The Blue Clerk, “Verso 24.1”:

Sometimes I am overloaded, too many people, too many thoughts, the author says. And these thoughts, these desires, are insensible anyway. A waiting room at the driver's licence office is the worst place to be when you feel overloaded. Waiting rooms are, in general, places of suffering, of kneeling to bureaucracy.

I love this placement — of the author in the bureaucratic office, of the pain of being someone so full of desire in a world that often — through such bureaucracy — either ignores the complexity of desire, or streamlines it, or attempts, through system after system, to make us — strange and absurd and mysterious and wonderful people we are — more efficient. And then makes us wait, dulled as we become, for such efficiency to happen.

Brand plays with that placement throughout The Blue Clerk — the placement of a complex person in a bureaucratic world, and the placement, too, of complexity within a person. “What the author has,” Brand writes in one poem, “A gregariousness followed by a sharp desire to be alone.”

Or here, consider another — “Verso 41”:

Tonight my brain is full of beautiful things collected over three weeks: the ring around Jupiter in the southern hemisphere; three flamingos dancing brine shrimp to the surface; the mirages of harbours only I have seen; the lithium salt desert; the rush for the local train at Ollantaytambo; a frantic scramble for a bundle of goods left behind; the electrochemical sky. The silence was the best thing.

Gregariousness and yet a desire for solitude. Such noticing of such beauty, and yet a love of silence. Brand’s work illustrates for me that poetry can provide us a model for how to reckon with that discomfort alluded to in today’s poem. Poetry can be answerless. It can be uncertain. It can be contradictory. It does not have to dull itself into efficiency. No — it never does, and it never should.

Standing in the back of the Cantab, just listening — that’s what I was reminded of. And I was reminded, too, of how much courage it takes to be so certainly uncertain, so ready to answer for your answerlessness, so fluid, so contradictory, and so proud of such a thing. So ready to share the world you make and insist out of yourself with the world of where you are.

It’s funny, how being surrounded and reminded of our collective discomfort, our collective anger, our collective sorrow, and our collective uncertainty can be more cause for the kind of comfort that offers real solace than when I am surrounded and made to feel reminded of the possibility of ease, or efficiency, or progress, like when I am walking through an outdoor shopping mall resurrected outside of the suburbs and made to look like its own tiny town, or when I am waiting in the security line at an airport and told by a probably-poorly paid company representative that I can skip the whole line if I offer over the metrics of my bodily data as a form of future identification, or when I am awkwardly struggling with the self checkout at the grocery store and notice that I can, it seems, scan my palm as a way to pay for my food. Something I have felt of loneliness in these scenarios. Something I have felt that has made me, even, want to cry. It’s the kind of loneliness I might try to conjure a poem out of, with the hope, maybe, that someone else has felt that kind of loneliness, too.

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Some (more than a few) notes:

1. There were a handful of readers of this newsletter at my reading in Boston this week, and I wanted to say thank you a million times over for coming. I love writing these little essays, and though the act of writing them does not feel entirely impersonal, it can feel like each of us, alone in our rooms, writing and reading from those lonely rooms. And so it was beyond beautiful to share a room with you, and to meet you, and to speak to you, and to hear from you.

2. If you, for any reason, would like to watch that reading, the live stream is available here.

3. This essay on witness in Jewish Currents, by Sarah Aziza, is worth reading. Aziza writes: “Perhaps the fundamental work of witness is the act of faith—an ethical and imaginative leap beyond what we can see. It is a sober reverence of, and a commitment to fight for, the always-unknowable other.”

4. As I mentioned in past newsletters, the ad hoc coalition Writers Against the War on Gaza has been a powerful resource that has, in these days, reminded me of all the various potentials for solidarity in this moment. You can follow them on Instagram here. I also recently donated to this fundraiser, in support of the Gaza Sunbirds — a para-cycling team that is reallocated their resources to offer on-the-ground aid in Gaza. Maybe consider donating if you have the means.

5. A little note if you are a yearly paying subscriber to this newsletter: many of you subscribed around this time (in January 2023), and I imagine your renewal is coming up. So, if you intended to purchase that yearly subscription as a kind of token of your appreciation (thank you!!!), make sure to unsubscribe if you meant it as a one-time thing. No offense or strange ill-will will be taken or had on my part at all — just gratitude for your appreciation in the first place.

6. If you’ve read any of the recent newsletters, you’ve perhaps noticed that I am offering a subscription option. This is functioning as a kind of “tip jar.” If you would like to offer your monetary support as a form of generosity, please consider becoming a paid subscriber below. There is no difference in what you receive as a free or paid subscriber; to choose the latter is simply an option to exercise your generosity if you feel willing. I am grateful for you either way. Thanks for your readership.