Poetry Collection - Kate Sommer

The collection I selected is Big Towns, Big Talk by Patricia Smith.
Patricia Smith is an African-American poet, spoken-word performer, playwright, author, writing teacher, and former journalist. She has published poems in several literary magazines and journals and has been featured in many anthologies such as American Voices and The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry. She works for the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing and the Low Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at Sierra Nevada College. She is also a four time National Poetry Slam champion.
The collection Big Towns, Big Talk focuses on life after you've grown up. It tends to take adult activities and liken them to children's activities or position them next to a child to exaggerate the differences between childhood and adulthood. For example, the poem "Dolls" compares real life to the life of Barbie and Ken dolls. It compares a young girl getting a young boy to play dolls with her to an older couple's relationship. The poem shows differences in opinions on kids and at the end connects the two by saying "i  know you would still rather play ball but baby the game is over". Another example comes from the poem "Annie Pearl Smith Discovers Moonlight". This poem focuses around a woman refusing to believe the moon landing is real because she thinks it means heaven isn't real. This is similar to a child growing up and realizing certain things they thought when they were younger aren't true, such as belief in Santa Claus.

Trying on Wedding Dresses in Filene's Basement

Later, I laughed with my husband about the crowds,
the proper dames with their studied Boston curves,
hissing at price tags and leading with their nails.
Flustered mothers fluffed and swirled thick silk,
while their daughters compared diamonds. "Nothing
on the rack over $200, my gawd they're practically
giving them away. Honey hold your stomach in.
It's the only one left in your size. Just get married 
in it, you can breathe later." Feeling smug and domestic,
I flashed my wife face at a pimpled coed crammed
into a silk sheath. Something in me ached to twinkle.

I was married in gold that winked when I walked,
a dress that once moved slowly through another man's
fingers. Innocent fabrics are wrong against my skin. 
My soon-to-be husband, caged in
unaccustomed collar, held his breath, his eyes shining with ritual,
his feet folded into black shoes. There was no part of
him I didn't want freed, no skin I didn't want rubbed
raw, but the ceremony called for touch only twice.
The gold dress grew nervy, moved even when I didn't.

My mother's best friend snapped pictures neither my
husband or I have seen since. Our faces,
dark and bloated in Polaroid, seemed only slightly married.
I had a diamond, but nothing perfumed and precise,
nothing with angels. Real brides, I knew, choke on their love,
have their faces scrubbed clean, wonder why words
feel plump in their mouths. Even pulse inspires them.
The gold dress branded me pretender. Damn Barbie and
her stiff, snowy lace, her veiled inscrutable eyes.

I laughed with my husband about June brides gunning
for the ultimate bargain. But I didn't tell him 
about the dresses I tried on. Pulling hard at faux pearls
and golden zippers. I felt old, sneaky, slippery as glass.
The first dress, gasping chiffon, flopped at my shoulders. 
Buttons carved like fists slid from their opening,
and a flash of lacy black bra changed the room's geography.

I reached for my sequinned second choice, an explosion
of ivory light and thin netting, and stepped into its
monstrous weight. Sweeping the train 'round front, 
I pulled myself the full primp in the mirror and waited for
a cacophony of bells, rose petals at the toes of my gym shoes.

Instead, I imagined my husband's beautiful hands at my neck
popping the first button, then - Barbie be damned - the second.

The poem "Trying on Wedding Dresses in Filene's Basement" compares the sensation of wedding dress shopping to dressing up as a child and also talks about how when you;'re older you have to put on a show or do things you'd rather not to do to please others. The second stanza of the poem describes the narrator's wedding. It tells of how she had to do things according to the tradition of the wedding but she would've rather done things her way. This shows that as you grow up you sometimes have to do things a different way than how you want them in order to please everyone else. It's a sad fact of life but it is a true one. Towards the end of the poem it talks about the joy that she felt when trying on dresses even though she was already married. I saw this as being likened to a child playing dress up and them pretending to be a bride and the amount of joy they get out of playing like this.

I enjoyed the themes of this collection because it focuses on the differences between childhood and adulthood but also the influences that your childhood has on you as an adult. Being seniors in high school, we are currently at that transition period between child and adult. We are at the beginning of our journeys to find who we will be as adult and who we were as a child will play a large role in that discovery whether it's sticking close to who you were or trying to steer in a different direction. I would be very interested to explore more on how our childhoods transfer into our adult lives.

Smith, Patricia. Big Towns, Big Talk. Hanover, NH: Zoland, 1992. N. pag. Print.
"Patricia Smith." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 10 Jan. 2016.
"Patricia Smith (poet)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Sept. 2015. Web. 10 Jan. 2016.