what the dancer thinks while dancing

so this is the poem i wrote in response to working with choreo. like i said below, i wanted to explore the way dancers used language when discussing dance. i had the title from the start, although i had "a dancer" for awhile. "the" came in later, a choice i liked because of the glide of the "th" and the generality.

i also had the opening line and the next to the last line (penultimate line) straight away also. they never changed never moved. from there i made a list of lines i liked. i wanted things that were sensual, intimate, indeterminate, contradictory, unsettling. i wanted a list poem (this was mostly because of the time restriction, but i ended up liking this form a lot), i wanted a lot of vowels.

i wrote down a lot of phrases one night when i was trying to go to sleep. i would write something down, turn out the light, think of something else, turn on the light, write it down, turn off the light, almost be asleep, think of something else. i worked with the list, pairing some things, moving the order, trying to figure out what organizing principles could hold it all together. i added more to the list and i kept reorganzing.

i read part of it to a dancer at rehersal. she liked the presence of the sense appeal and suggested adding something with "breath." it was a good suggestion and i eventually came up with the "breath and its opposite" line, a line i ended up liking.

i took it to poetry group- went over well with a couple of good suggestions. i liked "solidarity" and the "abridgement/expansion" pair, but the lines were too general at that time, particularly coming after "the moan of the whale" line. I tried moving them, ending with "sky of a tree" and "moan of a whale" lines as the next to last pairing, but that threw off the movement of the poem- there was no middle peak anymore. i moved them back and rewrote the abridgement and solidarity lines as they appear now.

i feel like it captures some things that struck me about dance. it moves me that they go on stage and reveal such intimacy. i think there is no way i could be a dancer for that alone (trust me, there's a long list of reasons why i couldn't be a dancer) i love their joy at it and the trust and comraderie it fosters between them, how generous it makes them in performance, and the way they negotiate the whole process.

oddly, they haven't heard it or seen it yet (i did read it for one of them on request) as they were changing when i read it (that was its purpose) so i don't know what they think about it or if it feels accurate to them or if it comes off as pretentious or naive or what. i liked it though, for its purpose and on its own.

what the dancer thinks while dancing

the way motion the way curve

the way infinite slips into intricate slips into intimate

how under rolls to over

how ghostly leads abroad

the anticipation of forearm for fingertip

the underside of the Bridge of Sighs

how giving stiffens to stop

the way pretending leaks into actual

why no one is ever apart why everyone feels alone

the way war is always present always at war with peace

how a hip can taste like cinammon a shoulder lemon balm

why the middle can be static why what is static is not stopped

the sky of a tree the hairs of the soil

the response of toes to a hand on a stomach

the moan of the whale in an ocean pulled flat

the way a lover expands through abridgement

how solidarity marries a form to the want

the way light appears as particle light appears as wave

the way palm sits on palm and fingers rest between

the way breath contains its opposite

the way the bridge reveals motion and the river comes to still

the way a kiss can lead to a kiss can lead to a kiss

and nothing ever appears causal at all