IF YOU’RE new to this exegesis, notice that I’m already doing Part 4.
Again, here’s the full text of Peter Solis Nery’s onion poem, if you still haven’t memorized it:
*
CHOPPING POEMS WITH ONIONS
by Peter Solis Nery
One lazy, rainy September afternoon
I examined a bored bulb of onion, its
Roots white, withered, and hopeless, its
Outer skin dry, flaky, almost purple, not
As dark as the fleshy inner skin next to it. (5)
And I remembered how in school, we
Examine poetry, dissect it hopelessly
Like an onion: peeling it layer after layer
Looking for hidden meaning, trying to
Solve some supposed mystery. I groaned (10)
With the onion. Then, I smiled, shook my
Head, cut the bulb in halves, and sliced each
Mystery thinly. I inhaled the stinging smell
The layers no longer a puzzle, the pungent
Smell, pure essence. My tears began to form (15)
And I cried for all the little helpless poems
We so mercilessly chopped to death.
*
After peeling the poem layer by layer like an onion in school trying to solve a mystery (lines 6-10), my draft said that: “I shook my head, cut the onion in halves, inhale its pungent smell, the layers no longer a puzzle, the pungent smell, pure essence…”
I actually ended the poem there first. And felt happy.
That was all I wanted to say about the onions:
That the smell that makes us cry is the essence of the onion.
It’s onionness!
If this poem is about an onion, this is it!
*
So, I edited and polished the lines.
And was so proud of my edits.
How I savored and reveled in each carefully structured sound effects—
In line 12, “bulb in halves” instead of “onion in halves.”
Line 12’s “sliced each” has a wonderful sounds, never mind if there isn’t a name for it; and I didn’t even put them in one line with “mystery thinly” (line 13), which also has a nice sonic play in the mouth, and ears.
I love the alliteration in “stinging smell” (line 13).
And I got ‘stinging’ from the thesaurus, when I looked up the word ‘pungent.’
I also love the alliteration and rhyme in “layer no longer” line 14, and the other alliteration provided by ‘puzzle’ and ‘pungent.’
I love the hisses of ‘smell’ and ‘essence’ in line 15.
*
The second half of line 15 was originally “My tears began to fall” but I thought that was lazy, and familiar.
I wanted to shake it up a bit so I said ‘form’ instead of ‘fall.’
And, in a flash of inspiration, I came up with a rush of words for the ending “And I cried for the poems we chopped to death.”
*
With that, I knew I have a finished poem.
Finished, but unpolished.
So, I arranged the words, and I really wanted a rectangular shape for my poems so, I broke “And I cried for the poems we chopped to death” into two lines:
“And I cried for the poems/
we chopped to death.”
I wanted a ‘p’ sound next to ‘poems’ (because I started to enjoy the consonance and alliterations), so I did ‘helpless.’
The ‘l’ sound inspired “all the helpless poems”, which didn’t take long to expand to “all the little helpless poems.”
*
The sound of ‘helpless’ in line 16, triggered the ‘merciless,’ which I correctly converted into ‘mercilessly’ in line 17.
The hiss in ‘mercilessly’ in turn triggered the ‘so’ adverb.
Thus, the beautiful sonic couplet—
“And I cried for all the little helpless poems
We so mercilessly chopped to death.”
*
“I groaned with the onion” (lines 10 and 11) was the second to the last sentence I added to the poem.
It was originally “I sighed with the onion”, but one of the submissions to the contest had that phrase.
And, of course, I didn’t want to be accused of copying a less than stellar poem.
Besides, Why sigh, if you can groan?
You sigh if you are silent like an onion, but if you want to complain, as I did about killing the poem by treating it like a forensic evidence, you groan!
*
“I smiled” (line 11) was the last phrase I added.
Again, playing with alliteration, I wanted an ‘s’ word beside “shook my head.”
And also because I wanted something soft to bridge the “groaning with the onion” (lines 10 and 11), and the “shaking my head.”
*
So yeah, next time, let’s talk about the title.
There’s a difference between “killing a poem” and “chopping a poem.”
I bet you don’t know it. (To be continued/PN)
