"Words, Wide Night"

Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
and the distance between us. I am thinking of you.
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.

This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say
it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.

La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine
the dark hills I would have to cross
to reach you. For I am in love with you and this

is what it is like or what it is like in words.

by Carol Ann Duffy (The Other Country)

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This is a popular poem on the net – it comes up a lot when you google it and people post it on their blogs from missing other people in the dark of night, lying awake thinking of them. Needless to say I’ve probably done this a lot too!

I am a big fan of this poet – I like it that she is frank and truthful and pursues truth actively. I like it that her poetry is strong and unsentimental, clear but complex, and has a bite to it. I like it that her writing is about the journey, the process. I haven’t yet read her latest collection, Rapture, which won the TS Eliot prize recently.

The first line has a few inside rhymes, these are my favourite. First the “o” sounds, then the “ai” sounds:

Somewhere on the other side of this wide night

Then the alliteration: Somewhere on the other side of this wide night

Nice, huh? The ‘s’ consonent and ‘o’ sounds remind me of words of desire and longing. The ‘w’ consonant and ‘ai’ sound stretch out the spaces making everything feel unattainable.

The “ah” sounds in the second line sound like sleepy yawning and the “ih” sound like the REM of eyelids and thought spikes, then a half rhyme of ‘you’ and ‘moon’ making their connection “you are as available to me as the moon”:

and the distance between us. I am thinking of you.

The room is turning slowly away from the moon.

The last line of the first stanza has that inside rhyme again ‘room/moon’ maybe there’s a more technical term for it but I simply can’t remember anymore. Despite myself this line makes me imagine the room, a square white box in space slowly rotating away in a lonely manner towards empty black space, away from the grey, glowing, pitted surface of the moon. But I also know it means, these lovers anchored in their rooms in different locations, spinning away day after day, never getting any closer to the other. And I also think it is a play on the cliché that people who miss each other imagine the other looking at the moon too and missing them.

Phew, I think I’ll only do that for the first stanza. Let’s get on with the meaning of the next stanzas.

This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say
it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.

I think this is an elegant way to say bitter sweet, it is pleasurable – a sensual word and it is sad, a true and simple word – nice juxtaposition. The next bit is the hardest for me to get a hold of: there’s a deliberate (I think – hope it is not a typo! Did check several versions online.) strange blip in the tense – like a word missing…in one of the tenses (past, present, future). The reader wants to substitute it – I am singing, I was singing, I will be singing…it is questioning where the lover fits into her life, like a daydream of possibilities we all have of our lovers.

By this time I am beginning to think it is not just physical distance but emotional distance which separates the lovers. (yes I am a bit slowww) – it is:

an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.

La lala la.

Two people who should be together but aren’t create a (haha pun) ‘tense’ situation, an impossible song that not only is impossible physically to reach the ears of the lover – but also sounds like gibberish. She is almost saying, words are not enough and yet proving herself wrong:

See? I close my eyes and imagine
the dark hills I would have to cross
to reach you. For I am in love with you and this

is what it is like or what it is like in words.

I really identify with this, I used to try and imagine the journey between my lover and I, from one city round the world to another. Though ‘dark hills’ makes me think sex and intimacy, the secret psyche of another person we all want to know and connect with, in a lover.

I just love that last line in its simple statement which offers itself up with such vulnerability, somehow so irrevocable. The poem is an offering in itself. It is aware that it is a poem if you want to speak deconstructively! The lovely ‘w’ sounds are like spread hands offering up this person’s trust. If I were to offer someone words, it would be a very high compliment – so I take what she has said this way. She’s so unselfconscious. In her love poetry, I see the influence of Adrienne Rich, who is also gay, a pioneer in simple, beautiful (also physical and radical) expression of her love for her lovers.

Part of the reason why this poem is so well known, is that it was on the Circle Line on the Tube in London. That is where I saw it for the first time – and it led me to seek out and continue reading Carol Ann Duffy’s work. I met her at a Cheltenham Litfest reading and she signed this poem in my copy of the book.

(Guest blogged by Msiagirl)