Through something like divine
guidance we are all interlopers
during this moonlit mountain-top
moment in Solano County: torn
fruit shed on Rockville Road: pass
Mankes Corner along the long run
of Green valley: below there where
we view all the vanquished from our
gravel drive ascension that goes right
into this pulpit of a dipping foothill
gap: so around here we cannot help
hearing the gospel of teenage warlords:
graffitied stone or seeing the bombing
of oblivions on Rio Vista Bridge: a few
crude intrusions of gang-tagging across
stucco walls along the mean streets of
Vacaville: it’s within these underworlds we
are earthy rituals of resignation only to
become dust-guests in a no-host hotel with a
register full of the most dangerous vacancies
Crows Landing (1990)
From: Crosswalk Casserole
Summary
“INTRUSION IN SUISUN” by Michael C. Ford is a poem centered on place and geography, mortality and loss, social justice. The poem develops its subject through recurring images and shifts in emotional pressure rather than reducing the experience to a single statement.
Analysis
Voice
The speaker works through observation and associative imagery, allowing scene and image to carry the argument.
Style and form
The poem is line-driven. 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 place and geography, mortality and loss, social justice, nature. 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 “INTRUSION IN SUISUN” 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.
Explore this poem
Source & rights
Source: Crosswalk Casserole (Lawn Gnome Publishing, First Edition, 2013)
Rights: © 2013 Lawn Gnome Publishing. All rights reserved.