Describe how the poet Rachel. M. Harper uses poetic devices such as form, tone and imagery to convey her complex relationship with her family
If music can be passed on
like brown eyes or a strong
left hook, this melody
is my inheritance, lineage traced
through a title track,
displayed on an album cover
that you pin to the wall
as art, oral history taught
on a record player, the lessons
sealed into the grooves like fact.
This is the only myth I know.
I sit on the hardwood
floors of a damp November,
my brother dealing cards
from an incomplete deck,
and I don't realize that this
moment is the definition
of family, collective memory
cut in rough-textured tones,
the voice of a horn so familiar
I don't know I'm listening,
Don't know I'm singing,
a child's improvisation
of Giant Steps or Impressions
songs without lyrics
can still be sung.
In six months, when my mother
is 2,000 miles away, deciding
if she wants to come home,
I will have forgotten
this moment, the security
of her footsteps, the warmth
of a radiator on my back, and you
present in the sound of typing
your own accompaniment,
multiphonics disguised as chords
in a distant room, speakers set
on high to fill the whole house
with your spirit, your call
as a declaration of love.
But the music will remain.
The timeless notes of jazz
too personal to play out loud,
stay locked in the rhythm
of my childhood, memories fading
like the words of a lullaby,
come to life in a saxophone's blow.
They lie when they say
music is universal—this is my song,
the notes like fingerprints
as delicate as breath.
I will not share this air
with anyone
but you.
In the poem, Rachel M Harper lyrically describes her relationship with her family, with music as a recurring motif representing her family.
The poem is demarcated into three stanzas, serving to mark changes in emotional tone.
The author firstly refers to music as ‘an oral history’ and compares music to brown eyes , a definite connection between members of a family. The music is almost like an heirloom, a cherished object that was passed on to her by members of her family, in a tradition as old as time. The music was once cherished by her father, who pinned up its album on the wall, played the record constantly, and, in turn, let her listen to it, giving her a share of a treasured thing. The music thus represents her family, her childhood with them. The author recalls that her songs are without lyrics, her familial ties are ineffable, indescribable. As a child, she did not know she was singing, did not know she was listening. A child is crafted by his environment, his home, and subconsciously picks up his or her values and personality from it. The author imbibes her family, their personalities, without realising it, safe in the arms of her family.
The writer is deeply nostalgic in this stanza, recalling memories and referring to her family’s lineage and heritage.
The author, however, changes her tone slightly when she refers to music, and - by extension- her past as a myth - ‘This is the only myth I know’ and the title of the poem “The myth of music”.
Oral histories change, turn fact to myth, embellishing and shadowing. The poem acknowledges that her construction of her past, her family, may be flawed, tinted with hindsight. Still, just as myths are retold to comfort people and cherished as tradition and heritage, the poet revels in her remembrances of her family.
Then, in the second stanza, the author describes a period of tumultuousness, and dysfunction in her family, with her mother 2000 miles away, and deciding whether or not to come home. In this period of time, she cannot remember the’ security of her mother’s footsteps’, ‘the warmth of the radiator on my back’.
Music is openly referred to as ‘a declaration of love’- that she did not hear or remember at the time. She feels unsafe, unhappy without the love and music of her family. The passage is melancholy and morose, contrasting with the original, surreal, blissful tone when she talked about earlier, happier times in her family.
There is a hopeful, warm change of tone in the next passage.
Even as her family splits ties, breaks away from each other, ‘memory fading’, the music remains, ‘timeless’. The motif of music takes on a new meaning- something lasting and universal, that will last longer than even one’s memories, said to be the essence of a person. Older, and perhaps far away, when she hears the strains of a saxophone, she is brought back to the songs of her childhood, to her family and her home.
The poem ends with acceptance, and the author identifies that her family and music is closely intertwined with her identity. Like breath and air, it is an integral part of her, and also personal and unique as a fingerprint. It is too personal to share, except with her father. She does not share these close-held feelings and memories with anyone but her father.
The poet uses the imagery of music constantly.
The changes in what her relationship with her family means to her is shown by the changes in how she pictures music. Her relationship with her family is a subtle, ineffable song without lyrics; a record player telling her family’s history in its grooves, and a tune that will come back to her whenever she hears a few notes of it on the saxophone.
The author paints us a deeply moving picture of love, family, and its complexities.
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