Packrat – Naomi Long Madgett

Definition of packrat - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pack_rat

Definition of packrat in context to the poem - http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pack+rat

The following poem, Packrat, written by Naomi Long Madgett is a seemingly simple poem. At a second glance, a certain technical complexity that pervades through the poem can be noticed. Considering how each of the stanzas can just be written as a sentence, but the idea of removing punctuations all together to isolate certain words or pieces is interesting. This kind of increases the speed of reading as the brain does not have to process these punctuations. As Cormac McCarthy employs the same technique in his writing where he completely ditches apostrophes and writes the conversations without them.

(For more on his writing style http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/cormac-mccarthys-punctuation-rules.html)

Following is a stanza by stanza explication of the poem:

My trouble is

I always try to save

everything

Similar to the packrat, which builds nests and saves everything there. The writer also does the same. Instead of letting go and moving on she holds on to everything close to her heart and never let’s go. By saying ‘I’ she has introduced herself into this piece and is rather also giving us an insight into her mind. Through this we can also conclude that she has come to terms with her own feelings and weaknesses as she is accepting what she is subconsciously doing.

Old clocks and calendars

expired words buried

in open graves

Using metaphors to create images and to simplify the explanation is a really good concept and a very good tactic of efficient writing. Analogies are prevalent in this poem and are spread-out throughout this piece. Old clocks and calendars represent memoirs in the writer’s mind; those of old times and dates that she had spent and should have been forgotten, as they are dead memories (‘in open graves’) which aren’t meant to be revisited.

But hoarding grains of sand

keep shifting as rivers

redefine boundaries and seasons

In contrast, as everything moves on naturally, it is just the human mind that lingers on to past. These natural metaphors have been introduced to dictate the difference between man and nature and how degrading to one’s life it is to not follow the most crucial path of nature i.e. to move on.

Lengths of old string

rolled into neat balls

neither measure nor bind

Love as a whole is not measured when it is obtained. No unit can measure it but faith and feelings.

Nor do shelves laden with rancid sweets preserve

what ants continually nibble away

Love again is compared to sweets here. Something sweet that rots but is too hard to leave as it is one of the most precious things in the world and even ants tend to nibble away on it.

Love should be eaten

while it is ripe

and then the pits discarded

Here love has been objectified and quantified in contrast to the previous stanzas. Here we can sense a hopelessness that circles the writers mind as she drastically changes her opinion from how love cannot be measured to how love should be experienced when at peak and throwing away its remains.

Lord give meat last

one cracked bowl holding

absolutely nothing

Asking for an illusion that would give peace to her mind is what she prays for. The bowl describes a certainty that she asks for but then she wants it to be cracked as she wants to experience the feeling of achievement every time she gets something. Considering the bowl is cracked, anything that she gets would fall or drop out of it. So she would want to get more of it and as she keeps getting it, the feeling of continual achievement would keep her happy. But that is just an illusion again.

Prevalent themes: Hopelessness, Lost love, Unforgettable memories, Illusions