The same way an infested regional park
lied about its name. How else would one
explain Lake Pleasant? Or how now, forty
years later, the time is intertwined with
dormant days, I am, still, connected to,
just like a safari of refrigerator trucks
were linked back at Chiriaco Summit. And
we’re attached to the same thumbnail moon
quivering over Quartzite and looking like a
fortune cookie on the flat black fabric of
midnight. And pretty soon Palo Verde prison
buses are moaning in the twilight of morning
and we can imagine skid marks on Superstition
Highway, as well as diner signs at the entrance
to Buckeye County and we remember cop cars
in pursuit reminding us of the soft siren whine
of all those mosquitoes by the side of the lake.
Now, forty years gone and asking myself just
how safe I really was and I can feel my hair has
turned into a tumbleweed blowing across the
evacuated campground warehouse of my head.
Tucson, Arizona { 2008}
From: Crosswalk Casserole
Summary
“FAILURE TO LEAVE PHOENIX IN ORDER TO SAVE MY LIFE IN THE SUMMER OF 1968” by Michael C. Ford is a poem centered on arizona, place and geography, memory. Its imagery is anchored in Arizona, Tucson. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
Analysis
Voice
A personal, first-person speaker combines recollection with direct emotional address.
Style and form
The poem is line-driven, first-person. The poem moves by accumulation: images, references, and tonal turns build on one another, so meaning emerges from their relationships as much as from narrative sequence.
Themes and imagery
Its strongest thematic currents include arizona, place and geography, memory, identity. Concrete images give those abstractions physical weight, while changes in diction and pace keep the poem from settling into a single emotional register.
Reading the poem
A productive way to read “FAILURE TO LEAVE PHOENIX IN ORDER TO SAVE MY LIFE IN THE SUMMER OF 1968” is to watch how its images change function as the poem progresses. Details that initially establish scene or memory become emotional evidence. The result is a poem whose argument is carried through association, rhythm, and image as much as through explicit statement.
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Source & rights
Source: Crosswalk Casserole (Lawn Gnome Publishing, First Edition, 2013)
Rights: © 2013 Lawn Gnome Publishing. All rights reserved.