levelheaded: tears

 

Marked by precise diction and an anonymous third-person narrator, this week’s poem bears the tone of a dictionary definition. It is brief, direct. In fact, we could easily read this piece and miss the poetry entirely.

 

From a scientific perspective, tears really are what our speaker says they are. Had Acharya chosen more overtly poetic words—say, “escape” instead of “secretion”—the poem’s metaphorical leanings would be more prominent on a first read. Our awareness of this poeticism would call attention to words individually, likely lessening the emotional weight of the poem as a whole.

 

Part of what makes “tears” so successful is that the poetry reveals itself slyly. The piece is built to impact readers in the unassuming way that a found poem might. Swallowed whole, the definition for “tears” gives us a sense that the words might mean more than they appear to at first glance. We are willing to examine them more closely, and when we do, their emotionally charged meanings have universal implications.

 

The word “tears” (as produced by crying) conjures its homograph (rips). The phrase “foreign object” is broad enough that it can be substituted with any reason our eyes might water—from a speck of dirt in our eye to the pain of having lost someone dear to us. The word “attempt” queues us into the fact that when we cry we do not, by definition, necessarily rid ourselves of the thing that causes our tears. The body does all that it can do to recover—it tries.

 

 

– The Editors