Elegy—
but not a real one, by any means. In the
laboratory, they talk of sacrificing mice.
One for you, one for me; or you can do both. No, that’s
okay, but how about tomorrow at ten? If none of
this makes sense, it is because this is science.
These days, I can never tell if the body is
important. Probably my father, who had wanted
me to be a physicist, had been right, that poetry
was turning me soft, that I would not live long
with this tenderness, that I would
give up my life too easily in exchange
for small mercy. No act of good can exist
without a lick of cruelty, so these days,
I hear of mice skinned & gutted
sunset pink & do nothing at all. Outside, the
evening sky churns & the professor is talking to
the last of her colleagues, and I am trying to sneak
another glance at the mouse in the cage
before she dismisses us. It is more alive
than I would have thought: black fur revealing
spots of white skin as it stretches
out on the shredded wood, pale ears
shell-shaped, watermelon pink on the inside.
It reminds me that I have always wanted
to say something insightful in the face of
death, and oh, how much I could do now
if I had understood the world slightly more.
Michelle Li
Michelle Li has been nationally recognized by Scholastic Art and Writing, Bennington Young Writers Awards, and Apprentice Writer. An alumna of the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop and the Adroit Summer Mentorship, her work is forthcoming or published in Aster Lit, wildscape. literary, and Frontier Poetry. She is Editor in Chief of The Incandescent Review, executive editor of Hominum Journal, and editor of The Dawn Reivew. In addition, she plays violin and piano, loves Rachmaninoff, blackberries, and the rain.
Why this Knocked Taylor Out:
I just, like from the first line, was completely bought in. The expectations of parents, brushing against the realities of life and the softness it takes to make art. This poem is exact in its delicacy. It carries the name “elegy” well.
The couplets are also so perfect and there are so many stunning line breaks. And I think this poem is doing what I think all great poems do: it risks the poet’s heart. Even as I return to this to put it on the site, and as I’m re-reading it, I feel so compelled by how the poem wants the speaker to be more and the speaker somehow can’t see that they are everything which is maybe coming down from the father figure but also the ways in which our world devalues the arts.
As a poet, I’d say poets understand the world better than any one, but maybe my own engineer father would disagree.
Interview:
Why did you choose Team Taylor for this poem?
This piece was inspired and also specifically written for BRAWL—I scrolled through the website and saw that Taylor enjoys poems about animals and exploration of the body. When I was planning my submission, I had been studying in Boston, and I say that the poem was inspired by BRAWL because I remember reading the “Choose your reader” section and thinking that both of the themes mentioned above played into themes I had experienced in this new city. It was Taylor’s list of things that she’s into reading that spurred this thought process, though. And so I wrote the piece.
How conscious are you about vulnerability in your work? Is it something that comes naturally or do you feel yourself purposefully incorporating it? How do you go about balancing the vulnerability of your work with gritty details such as spotted and death-bound mice?
To be entirely honest, I don’t think I’m very purposeful about vulnerability. I am aware of it to the extent one can be aware of their own writing, but it’s not something I direct a lot of attention towards. Perhaps I think that if I worry about that element, or pay too much attention to the vulnerability of writing, it will lose its effect on the reader. I’m still trying to learn this balancing act, and I would like to have more of a grasp on this sense of control—i.e., what elements of writing should/can be slightly more manufactured, to what extent a writer can do so without seeming artificial.
I actually think the vulnerability of the writing comes from the details. I’m always very touched by these small moments in life that I end up working into my pieces, such as the case with the mice. Of course, the imagery has to be purposeful to have an effect, and (I used to struggle with this) sparse at the same time—this is an example of where less can be more. To balance the vulnerability of the piece, I tend to shift out of the heavier subjects and transition into scenery, external contemplation, etc.
How did you form/revise this poem?
I’m a big fan of couplets, so I find that a lot of my writing tends to utilise this structure—the poetic form tends to lend itself to how the poem will be written. Per couplet, I try to hang onto one idea, before moving to the next. When I start writing, I actually put a bunch of ideas and sentences I like onto the page, and then most of forming and revising the poem is about the order in which the details will appear, or if they should appear at all.