The tone of the poem is a combination of a saddened honesty and sarcasm. The start of the poem begins with, “no I cannot win a knife fight,” which feels vulnerable and honest. The word choice and sentence structure convey this attitude. The first word is ‘no’ and that seems to be a response from the speaker to an authority figure, or of a question positioned in a way that only leaves one answer; it limits the possibilities. Combine “no” with the word “cannot” that follows and the lines quickly takes a sad turn, as it becomes an admission of defeat. Through the word “cannot,” the speaker confers this as fact and there is no changing it. The rigidity presented in this statement lends to the feeling of the speaker feeling alone in a society that doesn’t welcome both the idea of a yes and a no existing simultaneously, which thus lends to the overall gender fluidity presented throughout Conrad’s poetry.

However, while the first line is depressingly honest, Conrad is quick to insert humor and sarcasm in the very next line with, “for the fifteenth time” and complexes the meaning behind line one. Sarcasm and humor add a line of defense to the speaker; he may have successfully won fourteen knife fights, but the question arises, “why was he involved in so many knife fights?” The tone continuum moves back and forth from line to line so much that it becomes difficult to know exactly what is going on in the poem, but I believe that is the point of the poem.

This rolling together of lines adds another complexity to the poem: multiple potential readings depending the reader’s innate placement of breaths and pauses. The multiple readings occur due to the omission of punctuation and radical enjambment. For example, lines 1-4 offer a variety of readings due to the enjambment and reader’s choice to insert punctuation/pauses. The lines read, “no I cannot win a knife fight/for the fifteenth time/I didn’t see who/stabbed him.” At first, I read lines 1-2 as the speaker being unable to win a knife fight again, but during my second evaluation of the lines, I read line one alone and lines 2-3 together, which positioned the reader as being questioned about witnessing an event. By inserting a comma at the end of line one, and subsequently reading lines 2-3 together, it altered the speaker’s role. The speaker is no longer an active participant in the knife fight; rather, he is in the line of questioning as a witness (and perhaps involved).

Becoming the witness allows the speaker to see what the authority figure and the knife participants cannot see in the world, which speaks to the overall theme of being an outlier on a designated spectrum. Multiple readings are seen in “earache could be/from hearing/your last words/over and over in dreams” as well. If lines 16 and 17 are read together with a natural pause placed at the end of line 17, then the speaker is in pain from hearing the “your” utter his/her last words. On the other hand, if I read the work straight through line 18, then I am subjected to the speaker’s dream world. The layering of meaning that Conrad performs through enjambment and punctuation permits the reader to become a direct participant in the meaning of the poem; the reader adds natural pauses and derives different meanings based on how the lines are read together.

Conrad’s poem begs to be read multiple ways with a subtle ear to pick up on the oscillating tone and themes he explores through enjambment and punctuation.  

Song of Andoumboulou: 40
 
                        Asked his name, he said,
    "Stra, short for Stranger."
      Sang it. Semisaid, semisung.
"Stronjer?" I asked, semisang,
    half in jest. "Stronger,"
                                         he
      whatsaid back. Knotted
    highness, loquat highness,
      rope turned inward, tugged.
    Told he'd someday ascend,
he ascended, weather known as
      Whatsaid Rung... Climb was
        all anyone was, he went
                                                on,
    want rode our limbs like
        soul, he insisted, Nut's
      unremitting lift...
                                    Pocketed
rock's millenarian pillow...                    
           
 
Ideas on Mackey's Work:
"Mackey writing of a ‘we’ who floated ‘boatlike, / birdlike’ (p.21), and on the third line the words ‘Semisaid, semisung’ give thematic prominence to this idea of a hybrid art."
 
Notes on the poem:
-paratactic lines  (lines that are shorter without subordination)
- alliteration is important
-his work is in liminal space between music and poetry
- sonic enjambment
-manipulates lines by using homonyms…
-many words seem to function as musical notes….
-motivated rhythms…Mackey chooses words and sounds to propel the poetry without necessarily considering the word itself…you could scan the work, but the prosody of his poetry is reliant on sonics—on musical beats— the words continue to trace back to other words within the poem.

Covered up. That’s what happened to the name of the original author of The Mansion. Mary Ruefle seems to care little for the previous author, shamelessly taking the book as her own by erasing the original text and everything else that once made it Henry Von Dyke’s book.  That is, until you dive into Ruefle’s heavy-handed process of creating something new from something borrowed:

Everyone knows that I can afford to live/ in/a text

The formation of immortality surfaces through the erasure, for both Ruefle and Von Dyke. The omission of the original text under whiteout quiets the pages and allows new meaning to come alive through what remains seen.

Erasures, the poetic act of deletion, censure and hiding what once was, is an art form Ruefle has claimed as her true form. In the act of erasing, Ruefle manages to open the book up, breathe into it new energy, and give it an audience it didn’t have before Ruefle hid the contents away from our sight.

Not only does Ruefle cover up the text with white out, she affixes images, “stickers” and other visual layers to the top of the pages. Through erasure, she writes:

Using you as an illustration

We see Ruefle surface in this line with the vague ‘you’ often seen in the bulk of her poems. She calls out to a 'you’ to serve as a piece of the erasure. The line is followed by a photo of a large, hairy spider glued over the remaining text on the page. As The Mansion progresses, Ruefle begins to use varying graphics to add a new element to the poetry.
​
The book becomes a multidimensional art piece that relies on Von Dyke’s words, Ruefle’s poetics, and visual collage. As it seems, Ruefle isn’t erasing Von Dyke; rather she is collaborating with him.