"The Poem" by Kay Murphy

Since the 1600s, poetry has turned inward towards the poets' own experiences. Katherine Philips is considered a pioneer of poetry of private loss, a tradition that has continued into contemporary poetry. Like Philips, the poet Kay Murphy presents us with a poem of a small private loss in the face of a public tragedy. "The Poem" is a sonnet focused on Murphy's loss of her books after Hurricane Katrina, a natural disaster that destroyed the city of New Orleans and claimed many lives. Though Murphy runs the risk of criticism for her comparatively small loss, "The Poem" allows readers to access this incomprehensively massive tragedy through a small, personal connection.

“The Poem” takes the shape of a sonnet, a highly restrained form. Received forms can work to contain an event that seems uncontainable and can also create tension through opposition. A fourteen-line poem feels inadequate for describing the damage wreaked by Hurricane Katrina, but something in its concise tautness and the way it contradicts the hugeness of the storm works as a foil, making the tragedy bigger through contrast.

Murphy describes the aftermath of the hurricane in the third stanza of "The Poem":

Salt mud, filthy, soaked the bottom shelves, gummy

black pages. Higher up, the mold embossed

the first edition hardbacks. That stunned me--

to save twelve, see three thousand others tossed.

In this stanza, the poet describes (literally) her library. We see the damage the storm has caused in her home, and we’re given hard evidence—a number—of loss: twelve books saved and three thousand destroyed. Murphy runs the risk of selfishness here as a reader may ask how a person can be concerned with books when faced with the loss of so many lives (1,836 to be exact).

“The Poem” offers the reader a personal connection that allows them to feel the loss of the tragedy too big to fathom. The news itself cannot convey the emotional. William Carlos Williams nodded towards this in his lines: “It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.” I believe the personal must be in a poem because a poem can offer what news coverage can’t: a personal link. Contemporary readers may feel a disconnect to a tragedy they’ve witnessed through news coverage because it can feel so impersonal, so far away. A glimpse into a personal loss, however, makes it easier for a reader to imagine and to develop a greater sense of empathy.

Further, Murphy’s description not only applies to the poet’s personal library but to the entire city. As the third stanza shows us, so little of the city was saved and so much was lost. The final line of the poem, “such beautiful black roses on white walls,” describes the mold that grew on every building in New Orleans, in personal and public spaces alike. Here, the bookshelf becomes a metaphor for the larger destruction. Murphy invites us readers to witness the tragedy through a personal example, but then encourages us to look even further and examine the greater public loss.

Kay Murphy’s “The Poem” is only one example of a 21st century poem that accesses a public tragedy through a private loss. It begins with a dedication, “For my books,” but by being published (first in Copper Nickel and then in The Poetry Society of America’s special Hurricane Katrina Issue), this poem becomes for all of us, for all our losses. Though a poet writing the private always runs the risk of humiliation or criticism, a private moment can help him or her speak about the greater issue through a manageable scope. A bookshelf is easier to describe than a city in turmoil, and a personal moment can also allow a reader to have a deeper connection with a public tragedy.

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Since coming to the University of New Orleans in the fall of 1984, Kay Murphy has published over fifty reviews and essay reviews of contemporary poetry in national journals such as The American Book Review, and The Spoon River Poetry Review. Among the poets she has published work on are: Louise Glück, W.D. Snodgrass, John Haines, Martha Collins, Allison Joseph, and Carl Phillips. Her latest review is on the critic Camille Paglia's Break, Blow, Burn. Besides reviews, Professor Murphy has published fiction in such journals as Ascent and Fiction International. Her poetry has appeared in Seneca Review, College English, North American Review, Poetry, and Chelsea. She is poetry editor of Bayou.