Biography:

Geoffrey Brock was born into a family of poets in Atlanta, Georgia. Although at first he planned to study computer science, he became engaged in poetry after experiencing the Italian language and arts during a semester-abroad in Florence (1984). In learning to master Italian, as well as beginning to translate Italian poetry, Brock developed his understanding of form and rhyme.

Brock describes translation as a “wonderful apprentice activity for poets”(Stallings), as he enjoys the challenge of bringing metrical and rhymed pieces from one language to another. He learned to appreciate both form and content, while creatively exploring the use slant rhymes. This mastery in both strict iambic meters as well as free verse is revealed in the form-diverse poems of his first book, Weighing Light. In responding to comments about variety of form in his work, Brock noted, “it seems to me that many contemporary poets try their best to make all their poems sound the same, as if a poet’s highest achievement were the carving out of a recognizable voice…rather than, say, the writing of outstanding poems.” (Stallings)

After translating Cesare Pavese's poetry into Disaffections: Complete Poems 1930-1950, Brock was awarded the Raiziss/de Palchi Translation Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. He also received the MLA’s Lois Roth Translation Award, the PEN Center USA award, and the Guggenheim fellowship.

For his book, Weighing Light (2005), he won the New Criterion Poetry Prize, and his poems were featured in the Best American Poetry 2007 anthology. He earned other fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Antiquarian Society, the Arizona Commission on the Arts, and the Florida Arts Council.

Works Cited:

Stallings, A.E. “An Interview of Geoffrey Brock”. Featured Poet: Geoffrey Brock. Able Muse Review, 1999-2009. Web. 3 Jan, 2012.

And Day Brought Back My Night

It was so simple: you came back to me
And I was happy. Nothing seemed to matter
But that. That you had gone away from me
And lived for days with him — it didn't matter.
That I had been left to care for our old dog
And house alone — couldn't have mattered less!
On all this, you and I and our happy dog
Agreed. We slept. The world was worriless.

I woke in the morning, brimming with old joys
Till the fact-checker showed up, late, for work
And started in: Item: It's years, not days.
Item: you had no dog. Item: she isn't back,
In fact, she just remarried. And oh yes, item: you
Left her, remember? I did? I did. (I do.)¹⁴

I am drawn to the speaker’s unrealistic contentment in the beginning of the poem, which starkly contrasts with his uncomfortable guilt in the last line. The sudden climatic revelation in the final four lines effectively portrays this. It is a personal poem, as sentences break to reveal the speaker’s voice and thoughts of denial, giving impressions that he may be an unreliable narrator. (“I did?”, line 14)

The title, “And Day Brought Back My Night”, comes from the last line of John Milton’s sonnet, “On His Deceased Wife” (1656). This is an allusion, and Brock may have intended to create a modern version of Milton’s work. In both poems, the speakers imagine being reunited with their wives, although in Milton’s poem the ending reveals that the speaker’s wife has in fact died. Brock follows the emotions in Milton’s poem: first a dream-like delight, and then grief, but interestingly Brock places shame on the protagonist. The rhyme and structured form of Milton’s sonnet, however, is translated into free verse in Brock’s poem.

Snake Man

I in your presence resemble a hognose snake
           Lying on the spadelike scales

Of its back, in farinaceous dust, like a rope
           Of dough. And when you flip me

With the toe of a shoe, I do not (oh no) flip
           Back, for unlike that saphead

The hognose, I know many positions in which
           To be dead. And when you smile

To describe, in your up-to-date patois, all love
           As aleatory, or

Desire and indifference as twin winnowers,
           Then I with my upturned nose

(Keeping my venom even then to myself) hiss
           Softly at your shoelaces.

The image of a snake lying at the feet of “you” is an allusion to a biblical metaphor, where Satan, the serpent, nips at the heel of God in a last desperate attempt to avenge himself. This poem is haunting in that the snake is in control of the situation, while you are clueless about its tricks. Brock uses first and second person perspectives (“I in your presence”, line one), first person being the snake and second person being the reader. Being addressed makes me feel included as a passive character in the story, where my fate is directed by the snake. The poem never reveals explicitly what the snake is plotting, which adds to a reader’s feeling of helplessness.

There is also enjambment and an antagonist in this poem. Grammatical sentences are never completed in a line (“Of dough. And when you flip me”, line 4). Additionally, the snake, who appears in the title and throughout the poem as a symbol of lies, develops its thoughts as a human and demonstrates the human ability to be cruel. He/she is a rare first person antagonist against a second person character – the reader.

Mezzo Cammin

Today, as I jogged down the center line¹
of a closed-off, rain-glossed road, lost in a rhythm,
the memory of a boy returned: fifteen
or so, barefoot in faded cut-off jeans,
sprinting past neighbors’ houses, tears drifting⁵
into his ears, heart yanking at its seams—

he hoped they’d rip and didn’t slow at all ⁷
for more than a mile. After crossing Mission,
the boy collapsed beneath an oak, his whole 

body one cramp. (But later the secret smile, ¹⁰
imagining Guinness there—the clock-men stunned!)
Twenty years gone, that race so vivid still, 

yet I can’t for the life of me recall the gun:¹³
who was it, or what, that made me start to run?

There is not too much imagery for setting here, but I was drawn to the boy’s desperation, his “heart yanking at its seams” in the midst of unremarkable circumstances. Mezzo Cammin is Italian for “Half Journey”. The title may be an allusion to Dante Alighieri’s La Divina Commedia, which opens with, “In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself in a dark wood with the right road lost” (translated). The poem opens with the speaker crossing “the center line”, with the line being a symbol for reaching the midpoint of life.

Most of this poem describes a flashback, as the speaker remembers his past but observes as an onlooker, addressing his younger self in third person. The poem is unstructured, with scattered rhymes that appear to have no order: “jeans” and “seams” in lines 4 and 6, as well as “gun” and “run” in lines 13 and 14. This randomness matches with the speaker’s confusion over his direction and purpose in his life.

 

The Beautiful Animal - Comment on this one

By the time I recalled that it is also

terrifying, we had gone too far into

the charmed woods to return. It was then ³

the beautiful animal appeared in our path:

ribs jutting, moon-fed eyes moving

from me to you and back. If we show ⁶

none of the fear, it may tire of waiting

for the triggering flight, it may ask only

to lie between us and sleep, fur warm ⁹

on our skin, breath sweet on our necks

as it dreams of slaughter, as we dream

alternately of feeding and taming it ¹²

and of being the first to run. The woods

close tight around us, lying nested here

like spoons in a drawer of knives, to see ¹⁵

who wakes first, and from which dream.

I found many of the verses’ strange combination of imagery to be interesting – the terrifying and charmed woods, beautiful animal with jutting ribs, sweet breath and dreams of slaughter. This contrast creates an uneasy watchfulness for something to happen that will disrupt this temporary balance between violence and peace. While the poem ends with the animal and speaker peacefully curled up, asleep, the simile, “like spoons in a drawer of knives” (15), foreshadows that the coming event will be violent.

This poem uses second-person perspective, directly including readers into the story with “we”, “our”, “us”…etc (2, 4, 9). However, the animal is personified so that it fears, thinks, and dreams as the speaker does, causing me to sense both characters’ emotions.

Father Countries

The first true human, Cain was born in sorrow.¹
Adam covered his ears as his son crowned;
Eve had fathomed her curse. Cain made no sound.
Cain the man cleared the chamomile and yarrow,⁴
Conceived the scythe, the digging stick, the furrow,
Coaxed wheat and emmer from the wounded ground,
And sacrificed. Searching the sky, Cain found
Only God’s vast back turned, spined by a sparrow.⁸

The first to kill, the first to be unbrothered,⁹
Cain ached to see God’s face, even in anger.
Some sheep came wandering by; they ate the wheat.
A spotted moon rose; all the emmer withered.¹²
Cain, soon to father countries of pure hunger,
Slaughtered a lamb and salted its bright meat.

I liked how the slant rhymes (furrow-sparrow, unbrothered, withered, lines 5,8,9,12) in this poem are a bit subtle, as each line is fairly long and the rhyme scheme changes after the first octave.

Sorrow-crowned-sound-yarrow (ABBA)

Furrow-ground-found-sparrow (ABBA)

Unbrothered-anger-wheat (CDE)

Withered-hunger-meat. (CDE)

This form is called a Petrachan sonnet. Usually, the first octave presents a problem and the sestet (CDECDE) comments on the problem or provides a solution. The shift in rhyme scheme intentionally marks their different purposes.

“Father Countries” is a grim retelling of the story of Cain and Abel, found in Genesis. Here’s a quick summary of the biblical story – Cain and Abel were the first sons of Adam and Eve. Cain farmed land, while Abel, the younger son, raised sheep. When the time came to present sacrifices to God, Cain brought grains/wheat and Abel brought a choice firstborn lamb, so God favored Abel’s sacrifice. Cain, in jealousy, murdered Abel, and God exiled him.

Cain is partially sympathized in this narrative poem. In the sestet, where the problem is supposed to be addressed, it seems that Cain had no choice but to “slaughter a lamb” (14), presumably referring to Abel, because the crops he toiled for were destroyed. All countries are born with similar jealousy and desperation, according the narrator.