levelheaded: i am dumb with snow

In his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, William Wordsworth said, “All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” M.G. Martin’s “i am dumb with snow” embodies this definition. The poem’s greatest strength is its sense of urgency, the feeling that it needs to be spoken—an effect set into motion with the poem’s first line.

The present progressive verb tense found in the phrase “i’m trying” indicates that our speaker is very much in the moment. He or she is making an effort towards something—in this case, “to be close / to you.” As readers, we’re thrust into the action, and we’re compelled to empathize with someone who is struggling.

Martin’s use of repetition drives the poem forward (i am X, i am Y; “until i can’t. until i can”; “it is so big the mountain / is so big”). His spare use of punctuation, as well as the variation in the line and stanza length, add to the poem’s organic feel. When the phrase “i am trying” returns in stanza five, it’s as if all of the speaker’s attempts to define him or herself in the previous twelve lines have failed. But, hey, the speaker is trying, and the previous attempts at understanding are evidence of those efforts.

Notably, when the speaker removes him or herself from the narrative, the poem happens upon its biggest revelation. While this final sentence is undoubtedly relevant to the speaker’s personal situation, as the dominant pronoun “i” makes way for “you,” the reader finds him or herself re-injected into the story. The poet’s powerful feelings morph into our own when we consider the figurative meanings embedded in the fact that “the sky / becomes colder / the closer you come // to the sun.”

– The Editors