Work of the Day - January 22, 2007 - Once in a Field (an antic) by Carol Novack

Carol Novack is the editor of Mad Hatter's Review and also spends time blogging both at her own site and at Now What.  Somehow, beyond all of that effort, she still finds time to write and her poem, Once in a Field, is included in the latest issue (5.2) of Segue (scroll to pages 28-29).

"In the midst of the landscape loomed the Moby Dick of all scarecrows, tall as a telephone tower,

with dime store button eyes and a snow white bridal gown.  It's eyes were not uniform.  The

lavender eye was a heart-shaped little girl's button, the green eye elliptical with four holes."

What I liked about this stanza, that comes across throughout the rest of Novack's poem, is the combination of fine details, and the seemingly unrealistic.  Details such as the green button being both elliptical and having four holes.  Unrealistic things like the scarecrow being as tall as a telephone tower - hyperbole, or just a strange fact.  It's a decision Novack gives her readers more than just this once in this page and a half long antic.  This combination of tossing out what seems to be a pretty crazy idea, only to follow it up with details so precise that the reader gets sucked back into the possibilities of the work being truth, is a great point - counterpoint means of moving from beginning to end.  I'm looking forward to digging up more of Carol Novack's material.

Comments

[Eric Melbye]

Thanks for noticing Novack's piece, Dan, and for your observations.

I decided to publish Novack's piece for some of the things you noticed, too--this deft combining of the real and the fantastic in both the minute details and in the overall effect of the piece. It strikes me as Alice-in-Wonderland-esque: blurring lines between real/unreal, humor/horror, logic/madness, to create an event and a world that is both and neither. I also like how the "happily ever" ending plays on "happily after ever," providing fairy tale-like closure while opening outward at the same time. One of those works I read and wish I had written myself.