Developments
Moving between soffits and septic tank
into a house wandering and quiet, shiplapped
but exposed, the woman rearranges her life
into vertical parts. Some fastenings are undone
and each interior door has been sealed.
The corner tight by anchor bolt is still an edge
of shadowed light, her smile wide and blinking,
full of holes. She stands in the shadow
of anticipation and looks straight south through
the flattened horizon into a future
of other architecture. She wants a frame
without pitch, without anger. These 12 years
the caulking did not hold; weep cuts could not stop
tears from moving back into the house again.
Excess load has increased the chance of another failure.
If damage was factored into the design,
she was unaware. Look at the cracks
in the concrete, the door jamb. People notice
more than miters in moulding. Even at the start,
the house wasn’t plumb; it was never that simple
to say his love was structurally rigid
or exactly perpendicular to hers. He developed
other properties with his good blonde looks,
and she knew enough to mask the joints,
but the interior finish keeps eroding.
Her typical state is fatigue, a nailing surface for dread.
That the paint has cured is a matter of course,
but the continuous force of waiting:
it is this that she faces. This, and the sashing
of a glass past. She hides in the dormer,
talking on her phone for hours, staring
into the roof ridge. Everything was braced
by gypsum and plywood, joists and struts.
Even though the house was expertly built,
surfaces seem to leak and expand.
| Lauren Camp |
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levelheaded: Developments Take a look at the first sentence. The phrases “wandering and quiet, shiplapped / but exposed” modify “a house.” They also modify “the woman.” Thus, the methodology Lauren Camp imposed when she built “Developments” is revealed. Any ol’ house (as the indefinite article in the poem’s first sentence suggests) serves as an apt metaphor for a specific woman (as the definite article in that same sentence suggests). With this basic understanding, it’s tempting to clap the dust off our hands and pack up our tools for the day, but our work here isn’t done just yet. This job’s more complicated than it first seems.
A little bit ago, we said Lauren Camp “built ‘Developments.’” Not to hammer our own nail, but that’s an interesting word pairing in itself—one that highlights Camp’s technique. This poem feels fluid, naturally springing from a need to be spoken. For example, the phrase “weep cuts” boasts a spontaneous energy, an authenticity and urgency that the expected “deep cuts” simply cannot hold. Yet, “weep cuts” isn’t the product of frivolous wordplay. The “tears” of the next line can be pronounced a couple ways. When we go through the poem on a second or third read, we can tell this thing didn’t just happen, it was made.
Check out the line breaks, especially at the end of lines 6, 8, 12, and 20. Each line stands on its own, often because of Camp’s use of enjambment. The caesuras at the middle of these lines magnify the relationship between the words on either side of the punctuation mark. For example, line 8, “full of holes. She stands at the window” can also read, “Full of holes, she stands at the window.” A few lines later, “These 12 years” are understood to have been “without pitch, without anger.”
Hope we haven’t lost you with all this talk about enjambment and caesuras. Fact is, reading technical mumbo jumbo can be quite boring. Given her diction, and given that most of us aren’t carpenters, why is it then that Camp can keep our interest for 35 lines? The biggest reason is that the technical words, which usually bear finite meanings, take on new significance as they contribute to the central conceit. The “caulking” that “did not hold” stands in for a failed relationship; the “cracks / in the concrete” for being emotionally broken; the house that “wasn’t plumb” for an unbalanced love affair.
Just as remarkable as the way Camp charges technical language with emotional energy is how she writes what seems to be a deeply personal poem without ever using the word “I.” “[T]he woman” sure seems like it could be the author. At the same time, “she” can be understood as representative of a universal female. The sentiment expressed here reaches even farther though, beyond gender. Reading about “her,” we fill in the distance between narrator and reader with our own experience. Our thoughts build up; feelings develop. – The Editors |
