something like, i forgive everything by A K Blakemore
September’s Poem of the Month is something like, i forgive everything from A K Blakemore’s new pamphlet Shia LaBeouf (published this month by Makina Books). It is a wonderfully tender poem which illuminates the quiet moments of morning, the feeling of being in love, not only with a person, but also with the joy that the feeling bleeds into everyday life. It is a meditation on the familiar longing of not wanting to leave a lover alone in bed, wanting nothing more than “to climb back into bed with [them]”. The speaker of the poem occupies a space where everything is sublime, where “sunshine [is] bright and grasses / [come], exquisitely”. I especially love the small attention to detail the speaker gives to describing how she feels in that morning looking at her partner sleeping, the swell of emotion just from “seeing [her partner’s] wrist bent / in sleep’s amniotic reach”.
The title of this poem suggests that the scene described may have taken place in the aftermath of an argument or disagreement. It is also possible that what the speaker forgives, is past grievances, perhaps not only from her partner, but all of the wrongs that have been committed against her. Almost as though the intense emotion she feels in that moment is enough to rise above the hurt that preoccupied her before, to leave it behind in favour of the “gala of care in [her]”. I think it is a beautiful illustration of humanity in the times where togetherness is so much stronger than division or hate.
The poem is composed as an address to the speaker’s lover, almost as a conversation with its colloquial opening (“as i said”) and conversational markers including repetition and questions. Or it is a declaration. The lines are made up of broken structures, thoughts slipping into the line beneath as though the words are spilling from between the speaker’s lips before she can stop them. But within this, there is pause, a slowing down of pace that elongates the experience and allows the speaker to reflect in it internally, as in “i felt it necessary almost / to recover” and “there - / there is a whole gala of care in me”.
The first two stanzas explore the scene before her: her partner still asleep in bed, how the day looks out of the window, the scene so intense that she almost felt the need to recover from it, to let the day in. She is looking outward are what is around her, separate from herself. In the third and final stanza, the speaker turns her attention onto herself, observing as though from a distance this shiny new person she has become in the wake of her awareness of the “joie de vivre”. She asks, “who is this girl standing at a window / wanting sprinklers to rain down lovely on hot skin”, almost as though she is surprised at herself, surprised that she could want such things. This poem marks a new beginning, a new way of seeing the world.
You can buy a copy of the pamphlet here or see what the inside looks like in the video below.
