Tell it Slant

By: Katie Farris

You float in the MRI gloam,

Several spiculated masses;

I name you “cactus,”

carcinoma be damned-you make

a desert of all

of me

Have I said it slant enough?

Here’s a shot between

the eyes: Six days before

my thirty-seventh birthday,

a stranger called and said,

you have cancer. Unfortunately.

And then hung up the phone

COMMENTARY:

  • The general idea of this poem is Katie Farris trying to make light of her condition in the beginning of the poem, but finally breaking and letting her true emotions out by telling the reader about the pain Katie Farris felt when she was first diagnosed with cancer.
  • From this poem, we can obviously tell that the narrator, Katie Farris, is destroyed by this news, and she is heavily affected by her diagnosis.
  • The title is significant because it is basically saying that Katie Farris is trying to view her diagnosis from a different angle other than it being all bad. She is trying to make positive out of a negative situation.
  • There is a shift in the seventh line of the poem, when Katie Farris says, “Have I said it slant enough?”. This is because, in the lines prior to line seven, Katie Farris is trying to make light of her new diagnosis by naming her tumor, and having a playful attitude about her diagnosis in order to make it seem not as bad as it really is. In lines seven and the rest of the lines after line seven, she finally breaks her persona and stops trying to pretend that everything is fine when it isn’t. In line seven she says that line, which is basically a rhetorical question asking if she’s pretended long enough. For the rest of the poem, she compares her tumor to being shot in the head when she first learned about it. Which is an obvious shift from her attitude of her tumor from the beginning of the poem. After line seven, she stops pretending and finally starts to tell the reader her true emotions about her diagnosis.
  • The opening line, “You float in the MRI gloam,” is an example of hyperbole used, because she isn’t obviously floating, but it feels like she is because of all the drugs she is on and because of her illness
  • The author uses alliteration in the line, “Several spiculated masses;” which brings attention to the sheer number of tumors she has to battle, and illustrates her dire situation. This is because alliteration makes lines in a poem repetitive, which emphasizes the words being said in the line.
  • Katie Farris uses a metaphor to describe her tumor when she says, “I name you “cactus,”‘. This describes the pain that her tumor causes her, because she is able to compare her tumor to a something that is prickly and painful when you touch it. The reader is able to imagine the pain the reader is feeling, by imagining how it would feel to have a cactus inside of them.
  • Katie Farris uses another metaphor to describe her tumor when she says, “carcinoma be damned-you make a desert of all of me”. This comparison describes Katie Farris’ tumor by comparing it to a desert in this line of the poem. Deserts are dry and desolate and also devoid of all life. This allows the reader to picture how Katie Farris’ tumor is destroying the life in Katie Farris’ body, and only leaves an empty shell.
  • In another line, Katie Farris describes the pain she felt when she was first diagnosed with cancer, in which she states, “Here’s a shot between the eyes: Six days before my thirty-seventh birthday, a stranger called and said, you have cancer. Unfortunately. And then hung up the phone”. In this line, Katie Farris compares this moment in her life to being shot between the eyes. Obviously, being shot between the eyes would be extremely painful and would most likely kill you, which conveys how devastating and disruptive this news was to Katie Farris’ life when she first learned it.

“Sonnet 116”

By: William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments; love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wand’ring bark

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come.

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom:

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Commentary:

  • There is a noticeable shift between lines 4 and 5 in this poem. “Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark”. Before line 4 of the poem, Shakespeare discusses what society thinks love is, and that society thinks that love is able to be altered or removed. After line 4, Shakespeare refutes these beliefs by saying that love is an ever fixed mark. Which means that true love is unable to be changed or altered overtime or by other circumstances. We know this because an ever-fixed mark is referring to a lighthouse. This is because Shakespeare says that love is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken. This is obviously similar to how a lighthouse isn’t shaken in the face of storms, and often acts as a guiding light to ships at sea. By comparing love to a lighthouse, Shakespeare is telling the audience that love is unbreakable, and has the power to guide people through perilous endeavors, much like how a lighthouse would.
  • “O no, it is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken;”. This line in the poem tells the reader that love cannot be changed even in the most dire circumstances. We know this because Shakespeare compares the situations love often faces to tempests. Tempests are very harsh storms, and by saying that love can withstand harsh storms and not be scared or shaken, he is effectively saying that true love is able to stay strong in even the most dire circumstances.
  • Shakespeare demonstrates love’s guiding properties when he says, “It is the star to every wand’ring bark”. In this quote, Shakespeare is comparing love to the stars that ships and boats use to navigate the seas. We know this because, bark, roughly translates to the word ship that we use today. We also know that ships commonly used stars to navigate the open ocean for centuries. Stars often help ships find their way home, and help ships get back to safe locations when they are lost. By comparing love to these stars that ships use to navigate, Shakespeare is saying that love and stars have the same properties, and that they both guide people to comfort when they are lost or in peril.
  • There is another shift before the final couplet of this poem, in which Shakespeare says, “If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.”. In the lines preceding this final couplet, Shakespeare describes the constancy and unbreakable nature of love. Meanwhile, the final couplet shifts to a first person narrative in order to demonstrate Shakespeare’s confidence in his words.
  • The main idea of this poem is that true love is never ending and unchanging. The author gives examples of what true love should look like, and compares true love to strong symbols that are common throughout life.
  • The speaker of the poem seems very sure and confident in his assessment of love. He states his opinions as if they are fact, often by saying IT IS a lot throughout the poem.
  • The title of this poem is significant because many of Shakespeare’s poems were not published before his death. This means that many of Shakespeare’s sonnets don’t have names, and are simply given a number in the order of which they were written.
  • “love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds,” “O no, it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken;” These two quotes are examples of enjambment used. This is because the poem is continued down to the next line. The effect of enjambment used in these quotes from the poem is that it builds drama in the poem. This is because it forces the the reader to keep moving along in the poem to see what happens next. Each enjambment serves as a type of cliffhanger between each line, moving the reader along in the story, and keeping up the suspense in the poem.

“On the Morning of the Port Surgery”

By: Katie Farris

Before dawn, I walk outside
the clock. I strip and fold
my clothes into a bag, surrender
my braid, I’m wheeled into
the operating theater
for the opening act of what
will become a defining role
of Cancer Patient, Stage 3.

O feather-headed mongrel
my pickled fleabit heart
thrice-sword-stabbed
please keep beating.

Ungraceful, the heart boinks:
drugged, suspended, spiderwebbed –

Commentary:

  • This poem is about the author’s thoughts as she is being prepared for a surgery that could save her life. While this surgery could save her life, the author is still nervous about the operation, and feels trapped.
  • This poem gives the reader an introspective into the emotions of the author. From this, we can gather what the speaker/persona of the poem is like. The mood of the poem and the tone of the author leads the reader to believe that the author is nervous about her procedure. The author almost gives a very structured description of the lead up to her procedure. This tells the reader that she could also be very regimented, and that she is trying to keep organization in her life during this time of chaos. 
  • The title of this poem is significant, because it tells the reader what is going on during the poem. This is important because otherwise the reader would have no idea what is going on in the poem, because it isn’t described anywhere else in the poem. The title also contributes to the very structured nature of the poem, and the very regimented mood the poem has.
  • Katie Farris describes her heart during her preparation for her surgery by saying, “my pickled fleabit heart”. This line is very significant because it gives the reader a description of the author’s physical and mental struggles while going through this hard time. The imagery of having one’s heart “fleabit”, gives off a negative imagery in the reader’s mind. This is because having your heart be bitten by a bug would be painful, which shows the mental and physical struggle that Katie Farris is going through during her preparation for surgery.
  • Katie Farris also says, “the heart boinks”, when describing the preparation for her surgery. This tells the reader that Katie Farris is nervous for her operation, because it is a creative way of saying that her heart is pounding very fast in her chest, which is often what happens when someone is very nervous. 
  • Katie Farris says, “Thrice-sword-stabbed”. This gives the reader a negative image in their mind. This is because being stabbed by a sword would obviously be very painful. This negative imagery demonstrates to the reader the physical and mental pain that Katie Farris is going through in preparation for her surgery. 
  • In the last line of the poem, Katie Farris says, “drugged, suspended, spiderwebbed -“, this line is significant because it tells the reader that Katie Farris feels trapped. She feels trapped because she has cancer, and without this surgery she will die. This means that she is trapped and forced to undergo a surgery that is very frightening for her in order to save her life. Using the phrase, spiderwebbed, contributes to the feeling of being trapped, because in a spider’s web, bugs are unable to move, and are simply waiting for the beast to devour them. Similarly, how Katie Farris is just waiting for her cancer to go away. 
  • Katie Farris describes herself as, “Cancer Patient, Stage 3”. This gives the readers another introspective into the mind of Katie Farris. By describing herself as simply “Cancer Patient”, Katie Farris is robbing herself of all her identity, and is stating that cancer has overtaken parts of herself. This is important because it shows how devastating cancer has been to her life, that it has robbed her of all her identity and of the life that she once had. 
  • Katie Farris also says that she, “surrenders her braid”. This could be representing her hair loss due to chemo, and how that has affected her. 

Standing in the Forest of Being Alive

Title of Poem: “Standing in the Forest of Being Alive”

Author: Katie Farris

I stand in the forest of being alive: In one hand, a cheap aluminum pot of chicken stock and in the other, a heavy book of titles. O once, walking through a cemetery, I became terribly lost and could not speak (no one living knows the grammar). No one could direct me to the grave, so I looked at every name.

A heavy bird flapped its wings over someone’s sepulcher. Some of us are still putzes in death, catching bird shit on our headstones. Some of us never find what we’re looking for, praying it doesn’t pour before we find our names; certain we’re headed in the right direction, a drizzle begins, and what’s nameless inside our veins fluoresces, fluoresces in the rain.

Quotations and Commentary:

  • “Some of us are still putzes in death, catching bird shit on our headstones”. I chose to highlight this line in the poem, because I think the comparison of having bird shit on our headstones is a good comparison to being a putz in real life. A lot of people take shit from other people they don’t like, and just allow people to trample all over them. This makes this comparison creative because just like a headstone, a lot of people who are putzes are unable to act or stand up for themselves. In a way I think the author is encouraging the reader to not be a putz while they’re still living, and to appreciate life while they have it.
  • “Some of us never find what we’re looking for, praying it doesn’t pour before we find our names”. I like the wording the author uses when discussing how people act when they try to find purpose in their life before they die. Instead of saying what she means, she instead says “before we find our names”. Because the author is walking through a cemetery, finding your name in the cemetery would be equivalent to being dead. So I liked that she chose a creative way of saying “before we die”, and instead saying “before we find our names”.
  • The title of this poem is significant, because similar to how Katie Farris became lost looking around the cemetery for a name, it is very easy for someone to become lost in a forest. The title tells the reader that the author is lost in life, and is trying to find purpose. This title not only tells the reader what the poem is going to be about, but also tells the reader what struggle the author is going through, and how the author feels at this time in her life.
  • This poem is about a woman with breast cancer, and how she is coping with her diagnosis. She grapples with the struggles of cancer, and also comes to terms with her death. In this poem, she talks about the importance of finding your purpose in life before its too late, and about how to appreciate life to the fullest. 
  • I think that Katie Farris is very courageous for using her struggles and incorporating them into her work. With such a terrible diagnosis, it must have been hard for her to find motivation to write when she was so sick. I also think that Katie Farris’ message is super important for not just cancer survivors, but anyone who reads this poem. I believe this because she gives people advice on how to deal with struggle, and allows people to appreciate their lives. 
  • Katie Farris uses a metaphor to compare catching shit on people’s headstones to how people don’t stand up for themselves in life. I think that this metaphor is important because it encourages people to stand up for themselves by pairing not doing it with the negative image of catching shit on their headstone. 
  • A shift in the poem occurs after the first stanza of the poem. Before this shift, Katie Farris talks about how she feels lost in life. After the shift, Katie Farris gives an in depth description of how people become lost after once becoming lost herself.
  • In the beginning of the poem, Katie Farris says, “I stand in the Forest of Being Alive. In one hand, a cheap aluminum pot of chicken stock and in the other, a heavy book of titles.” This gives us an idea into who Katie Farris is, and what things are important to her. This is because while she is lost in the forest of life, she carries with her these two objects. Even when she is lost, she has these items with her, which shows how important books are in her life. 

Standing in the Forest of Being Alive

She graduated with an MFA from Brown University, and is currently Visiting Associate Professor of Poetry at Princeton University. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Granta, The Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, and Poetry, and has been commissioned by MoMA. Katie Farris is the author of the memoir-in-poems, Standing in the Forest of Being Alive from Alice James Books (US) and Liverpool University Press (UK), which was listed as a Publisher’s Weekly’s Top 10 Poetry Books for 2023.