ZACH SAVICH / EMERGENCIES IN A MEDITATION
First Meditation
Soothing eucalyptus from Amazon, leather stretchers, lip reading YouTubes, my faith is in the lyrical peripheral. It is throughout. The “wise” muttering isn’t wisdom, it’s the need for wisdom. The “quiet” pose implies—tornadoes. The needs of bushels. Haven’t you maintained a secret vole, or dirt bees, a bag of batteries, vital to the nosegays?
There is no secret language. Corrosive gardens. The fear of the lyrical peripheral abounds. Stones mortared by the worms surrounding. If you have just one match, put it out. Let soil warm. Our hero was Lucas, Lucas of the rightfield bleachers, his back to the game, calming the rowdies, lifeguard of hot dog stubs, they know him, they’re fond, they hate, Lucas, be true!
But to fund a secret school, one’s self. I found a snot-crystal of hint-of-lime bulbous in the chips. Shaved it in queso, ground it for a rub. This saved me years. Tapestries lined the sauna.
I stapled the face. One staple per tooth. We’re already embedded. The surveillance cameras assume us. The most expensive massage activates no traumatic healing, no flashbacks, no waterfalls, no loading docks. I could move the outfielders in and they’d retain dimension (tiny) or move the catcher out (huge). Lucas, watch out! Lotions and lotions of rare ions make up for something, a dance marathon on a very steep slope, hold on to tendrils, to pigs and golf clubs clambering at gravel.
Second Meditation
Speaking of “tiny,” using the admittedly imperfect method of searching for “tiny AND poetry” in the online archives of the New Yorker, and then sorting the results by date, avoiding results that don’t link to poems but to articles, and not worrying too much if I missed some poems, or if search engines still care if you put “AND” in all caps, I found 41 appearances of the word “tiny” in poems published in the New Yorker, or their titles, from 2007 up to the moment of my search.
According to the New Yorker, the New Yorker publishes about 100 poems each year, which means that the New Yorker has published about 950 poems since 2007 up to the moment of my search, and so the word “tiny” has appeared in poems published in the New Yorker, or their titles, about four times per year, or in about 4.3% of poems, or their titles.
The first months of 2017, which inspired my research, saw five occurrences of the word “tiny” in poems published in the New Yorker, or their titles, which is as many occurrences of “tiny” as any earlier year’s complete total, except for 2014, when there were six occurrences of the word “tiny” in poems published in the New Yorker, or their titles. The second highest number of occurrences of “tiny” in a single year was 2016, when there were five. Thus, 2017’s initial “tiny” tally can be seen as part of a two-year trend, especially when you consider that 2017 is the only year in the period I studied in which there have been multiple occurrences of “tiny” in multiple months—twice in April, three times in January. No other year in the period I studied includes a month with three occurrences of “tiny.”
In the period I studied, Philip Levine was the only poet to use the word “tiny” twice in a single poem published in the New Yorker, or its title. He also had the most occurrences of “tiny” in poems published in the New Yorker in a single poem and the most occurrences of “tiny” in poems published in the New Yorker in a single year—three occurrences, in 2007—all thanks to his poem “Of Love and Other Disasters,” in which he writes:
he noticed that her eyes
were hazel flecked with tiny spots
of gold, and then—embarrassed—looked
back at her hand, which was tiny
Third Meditation
For starters, it’s unnecessary to say that the spots in the flecks in a person’s eyes are “tiny,” because spots and flecks and eyes are usually relatively small. Eyes, mostly, in fact, are eye-sized. Second, it’s imprecise to use “tiny” to describe both her hand and the spots in the flecks in her eyes, because in each instance, the word must have hugely different meanings. Third, it isn’t clear if “tiny” is in relation to her body or his body or other bodies or another point of reference. Was Levine, or the office of the New Yorker, extremely large, so it’s reasonable to tiny tiny tiny?
But the frequency of “tiny” in poems published in the New Yorker, or their titles, signals more than prosaic imprecision. Consider the following:
“tiny paws / more like hands, really” (2013)
“tiny butterfly” (2012)
“tiny goldfish” (2008)
Non-human creatures and their parts are “tiny.” Indicates distance from the non-human world. Animals not seen on their own terms but through the projection of “tiny.” In line with the transformation of “paws” into “hands,” the guilty tic of “really.” As in another poem’s “tiny mountain chickadees” (2017). Hard to believe the poet means “tiny in contrast with the gigantic mountain chickadees you might otherwise picture.” Is she providing emphasis, not just padding? If so, you’d expect to see more expressive adjectives doing that work, as well as instances of terms such as “teeny-tiny” or “teensy-weensy.”
In the period I studied, dear kittens, there are none.
Fourth Meditation
“Sing Caroline Rose,” pleads a piercing, moronic voice. “Make a move on me,” snarls the thug, crumbling a cinderblock absentmindedly with one hand, “and we can go to the Vortex.”
On the screen, the deathfilm is intercut. Your bodyguard comes lumbering. Trying to go through a closed door is potentially dangerous. We cannot tolerate this negative attitude with the whole world in danger. Your guard kicks air. Your grunting guard pauses and says, “I think you should challenge a thug on the stage. Try to win a tool or weapon.” Go east. The entrance to the dust is rapidly spinning. Go to dust. You’re not a mop! Be in dust.
The Post-It note left on the oats will remind me. I’m really glad we got to do this. I’m having a lot of fun. It’s always nice to get to do something fun, right? Oh, there’s Zoe. I’m so nervous about this date. I want to tell her how badly I like her. But. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to say it. Okay…do you want to know my one weakness? That’s up to you. Sweets! I can definitely be bribed with candy. I’m entrusting you with this dangerous knowledge that can be used to manipulate me.
I spent 15 minutes trying on different earrings today!
Fifth Meditation
For perspective, while the overall ratio of “tidy” to “tiny” in the New Yorker’s easily searchable archives is 594 to 40,200, or about 1 to 68, the ratio of “John Updike AND tidy” to “John Updike AND tiny” is 22 to 101, or about 1 to 5. This is incredible! Consider that the ratio of “John Updike AND death” to “John Updike AND tidy” is 4 to 1. For John McPhee, in contrast, that ratio is 100 to 1—five times the ratio! For John Cheever, about 60 to 1. For Joan Didion, 20 to 1.
“Tiny voices.” “Tiny bright green buds.” “So pure and tiny.” “Your iris: a tiny mirror.” “Tiny brown ants.” “The tiny pins.” “Millions of tiny.” “A tiny fraction.” “A tiny TV.” “Two tiny speakers.” “A tiny me.” “Like tiny antlers.” “In the tiny country.” “‘Tiny’ was born to pedigree pointers.” “Way too tiny.” “The tiny distances / to his body.” “Her body, this tiny room.” “Your tiny / spoon.” “The tiny valve.” “So many tiny lines.” “I’m flying over tiny hills.” “The only birds were tiny.”
Sixth Meditation
But the most baffling “tiny” in poems published in the New Yorker, or their titles, occurred after my research, after my last tumor, in the long aftermath after surgeons and oncologists tell you you’re fine, but you’re not, how could you be, you just don’t actively have cancer anymore, or, really, you could have cancer, as you have often had, but you haven’t yet felt the wild toxicity come back, haven’t yet again ignored it until you see the bulge begin to gain its daily girth. The danger is not at first, Dickinson tells us, for then you are unconscious, but in the after, slower hours.
My so-called altered anatomy—bicycle held together with gum, hurled downhill fast—led to other problems. Once, after a night excessive with friends, a seeming hangover revealed itself to be another obstruction. I liked the emergency room doctor. “This isn’t an emergency,” he said. “You could’ve waited another hour.” He then stabbed a thing into my lung.
After that there was nothing for us to do but move to Cleveland. I tried a drug that took three weeks to taper onto. Eyesight blur, tongue numb, world shimmery horrid. If it helped after that tapering, it was supposed to help with some nerve issues, or maybe it was for fatigue, or forever. I was fucked out. I resolved to become an artist who worked with plain glass, I made some sketches (squinting, because of the eyesight), I called a hardware store and said I am an artist who works with plain glass, and I am going to do a thing in the schools, and could they please donate as many scraps as possible asap?
Then a couple weeks spun around me, concussive. I discontinued the trial. I taught part-time, made $3k a class. Medical bills kept showing up, many over $3k. A cashier at Whole Foods asked me what I was reading and when I said huh he said he was reading a book about how illness is caused by our minds. I said I’d had a lot of cancer. He said it’s about your mind. I said I’d met a lot of children with cancer. He said diet and the thoughts around you also make a big difference, and your parents’ parents’ thoughts.
Went to buy a shirt to feel different. A guy kept following me at the department store. I made several odd stops and turns. He stayed a few feet back. I wondered if he was disabled, or fucked out like me, separated from a caregiver. I said, “Are you all right? Can I help you with something?” And he bumped my chest with his and screamed, “Quit fucking following me! Quit fucking following me!”
I felt for the guy pinching the shards of a cut-up credit card through the convenience store reader and for the card. Oh, and how patient the tender line! I thought this was it: survival. What was it worth? All you get to be is alive. Pain, collapse, loss, embarrassment. Without the acuity and oblivion of illness. Without the mortal meaning. I felt, often, strange. A former colleague, a designer, texted me about cherry blossoms and invited me to his place in Michigan. He knew where all the nearby pianos were, his kid needed to practice, he said he could take me on a tour, a tour of the pianos of rural Michigan, how kind, then I opened the New Yorker to the poem with the most baffling “tiny” published in the New Yorker, or their titles.” I can’t tell if it’s satire? I’ve puzzled for years, presented it to many for comment.
It starts with ponderously obvious filigreed ornamented chunks: “Elsewhere air strikes carve / white gold through the night.” The first word feels like comedy: yep, you are not writing your poem while actively being bombed, thanks for confirming! And then the poet wonders if “how they bloom and brandish” on the news is meant to stir, in the speaker’s chest, “some vain- / glorious clamor, some cry.” This was the era in which you were always seeing constructions like “some x, some y.” But more largely, no, no, the air strikes aren’t about stirring you, no, it’s not, it’s not, “how they bloom” is about bombing people.
The poem moves prematurely to a memory of watching a loved one at the sink: “Instead I remember you / washing the dishes while / a single tiny soap bubble / floated behind you.” This has the hallmarks of “tiny” in poems published in the New Yorker, or their titles: is it differentiating this bubble from the mammoth bubbles we would otherwise picture? Also “single” is unnecessary. Also, she goes on to suggest that she wants this “warm kitchen glow”—this moment of watching a bubble and a beloved—“to / stay mine, no matter the cost.” The poem seems to suggest that the preservation of a tiny domestic lyrical diorama moment is worth the cost of all those tiny people bombed on the news. Is it satire that doesn’t land? Is it deliberately echoing Madeleine Albright, in 1996, on the effects of sanctions on Iraq, without critique? (A journalist asks: “We have heard that half a million children have died. Is the price worth it?” And she replied: “We think the price is worth it.”)
Or there can be a one-part experience. Not you see a thing and think, but you see a thing, which is thinking. However, directly imitative concrete poetry often neutralizes the visual effect. You see the poem in the shape of a flower and so you stop “seeing” in the ways that happen when language has no shape but language. Get the right catchphrase, never need to speak again.
Zach Savich is the author of eight books, including Daybed (Black Ocean, 2018). Recent work has appeared in the Georgia Review, A Dozen Nothing, Poetry Northwest, Full Stop, Diode, and elsewhere.