Marveling Over Closing Poems

Like the excitement surrounding a much-anticipated play finale, closing poems are an occasion, but that’s not to accidental that I don’t emotion each the different parts of a poesy collection. In fact, I work books from the rubric to blurbs, though not ever successful that order. Fascinated by the “Notes” and “Acknowledgements” sections, I beauteous overmuch ever work the backmost substance earlier finishing the main attraction.

One crushed for skipping around: I privation the last page, poem, sentence, line, past connection of a enactment to beryllium the past happening I read. I similar to savor endings, to bask successful my feelings. Plus, the past lines of closing poems extremity a portion and a collection, leaving readers with a consciousness of clarity and closure and sometimes an opening. So, I defender that abstraction by finishing the endpages beforehand.

In caller years, my involvement successful poesy has multiplied, particularly my curiosity astir however everything from a poem to a postulation comes together. I peruse poesy chapbooks and collections, trade essays, interviews, and podcasts. While penning this, gratitude for “Ada Limón connected How to Write a Poetry Collection” from Literary Hub and Chet’la Sebree’s online people “Exit Strategies: How to End a Poem” via Hedgebrook kept arising. Knowing their invaluable lessons aquatics successful my encephalon and pass my readings, I observe them here.

A devoted rereader and idiosyncratic rendered speechless and inactive by choosing favorites, I often look to my rereads to larn and observe what moves me. Because connection limits, I utilize that attack successful this essay. Now, onto those go-to, heart-grabbing closing poems.

Again and again, I notation the constellation of poems taped to my bath mirror. Those memorized pieces consciousness similar friends. Even erstwhile I’m not revisiting oregon reciting them, they, akin to the formative books stacked successful my penning space, loom successful their comforting, inspiring way. The six touchstones see a closing poem, “Object Permanence.” This emotion poem of emotion poems ends Ordinary Beast. I’ve work Nicole Sealey’s debut postulation exploring family, friendship, mythology, and contention 5 times, but I don’t adjacent cognize however to statesman to picture the fig of times I’ve turned to its last poem.

Comprised astir wholly of couplets, “Object Permanence” consists of 8 two-line stanzas and begins, “We aftermath arsenic if amazed the different is inactive there, / each petting the expanse to beryllium sure.” The ninth and last stanza features a azygous line: “how I’ll miss you erstwhile we’re dead.” While addressing mortality, the ending departs from the poem’s erstwhile form. This alteration seems sudden, straightforward, and poignantly tragic successful its loneliness. And yet, it rings hopeful, romantic, and reassuring. In the concluding line, the talker hints that emotion transcends death. And if tears overwhelm your eyes, some the rubric and corresponding introduction for the poem successful the “Notes” reminds audiences, “objects proceed to beryllium adjacent erstwhile they cannot beryllium observed.”

With 4 reads and counting, I continually question retired Postcolonial Love Poem. Delving into the body, desire, language, and nature, Natalie Diaz’s Pulitzer Prize–winning publication keeps popping up successful my life, too. Author aft writer I respect mention it arsenic a publication they admire. As I drafted this essay, an earlier version of the closing poem resurfaced successful my societal media feed, which I, of course, recovered serendipitous, instantly reread, and near the gleaming model up successful my browser to survey implicit the pursuing days.

Glancing astatine dates and my beloved copy, the archetypal clip I work Diaz’s sophomore postulation occurred during a time of marginalia. In “Grief Work,” a poem meditating connected intimacy and healing and love, I near 5 hearts and 2 lines successful the margins on with a dog-ear. I hearted and hug adjacent that opening, “Why not present spell toward the things I love?” One of the galore things astir this poem that draws maine in, on with the innovative punctuation and usage of space, is the question from I and her and she and my and hers and me to, adjacent the end, we. At the notation of the We, the words go and love instrumentality successful the enactment (also hearted): “We spell wherever determination is love, // to the river, connected our knees beneath the saccharine / water….”

While reasoning astir endings, I bookmarked Limón’s “The End of Poetry,” a haunting person with end successful its title, aboriginal on. Since summer, I’ve been rereading The Hurting Kind, which is organized into 4 parts according to season, astatine the accomplishment of each equinox and solstice. Three quarters into my 3rd read, I jotted return to “Spring” successful my calendar connected March 20, but I’ve flipped to the past poem with a fangirl frequency. A person of lists and repetition, I applaud the dependable — “osseous” and “chiaroscuro” and “the long-lost / missive connected the dresser” — successful this piece, and I delight successful surprises.

Like the jolt of poetry-lightning I acquisition erstwhile speechmaking the past enactment of “Object Permanence,” the past enactment of Limón’s closing poem calls to me. On the page, it — practically fractional the magnitude of astir lines — draws attraction to itself with its brevity. In summation to being 3 syllables shorter than the 2nd shortest enactment and 8 syllables shorter than the longest line, the last enactment contains the archetypal and lone play successful the piece, accentuating a finality aft a winded-ness: “I americium asking you to interaction me.”

If you harbor countless crushes connected poems oregon are processing them, delight pore implicit much poesy posts, including this essay’s older sibling by yours truly, Marveling Over Opening Poems; A Guide to U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s Poems; and our poetry archives.