THIS CONTINUES the exegesis of my onion poem reprinted below.
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CHOPPING POEMS WITH ONIONS
By Peter Solis Nery
One lazy, rainy September afternoon
I examined a bored bulb of onion, its
Roots white, withered, and hopeless, its
Outer skin dry, flaky, almost purple, not
As dark as the fleshy inner skin next to it. (5)
And I remembered how in school, we
Examine poetry, dissect it hopelessly
Like an onion: peeling it layer after layer
Looking for hidden meaning, trying to
Solve some supposed mystery. I groaned (10)
With the onion. Then, I smiled, shook my
Head, cut the bulb in halves, and sliced each
Mystery thinly. I inhaled the stinging smell
The layers no longer a puzzle, the pungent
Smell, pure essence. My tears began to form (15)
And I cried for all the little helpless poems
We so mercilessly chopped to death.
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My draft said: “I examine the onion/ with its purple skin/ almost dry, purple/ but not as dark as the next layer/ its roots dry and white.”
Immediately, ‘bulb’ came to mind.
But, I also thought, who examines an onion bulb?
Bored people!
I already said I’m feeling lazy since July.
And I’m thinking I’m feeling lazy because I’m feeling bored.
August and September are usually my travel months, but Covid put a stop to that.
So, am I feeling lazy because I’m doing boring repetitions of Netflix bingeing, sleeping, cooking, eating, reading, et cetera?
Bored and lazy, I am.
So I adopted ‘bored’ because it has a nice alliteration to ‘bulb.’
Is the bulb really bored, or am I just projecting my boredom on the onion bulb?
I really don’t care about that at this point.
The line sounds good, and it feels right to me.
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It was after the seventh and eighth reading of the poem that I decided to transpose the roots (line 3) and skin (lines 4 and 5) portions in the poem.
But early on, I have decided to put ‘its’ at the end of lines 2 and 3.
It’s called an enjambment — the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line.
Notice that it also looks like a beautiful visual rhyme.
It’s very tempting to say,
“I examined a bored bulb of onion.
Its outer dry skin, flaky, almost purple
Not as dark as the fleshy inner skin next to it.
Its roots white, withered, and hopeless.”
But I wanted to emphasize certain words and phrases.
Poetry tip: The first word of the line has more emphasis than the last word of the line.
Unless, you are writing the killer ending of the last line.
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By placing ‘its’ and ‘but’ at the end of lines 2, 3, and 4, I gave the attention and focus to ‘roots,’ ‘outer skin,’ and ‘as dark as’ of their succeeding line.
What made me ultimately decide to transpose the roots and skin portion was the fact that the skin story has two lines, and it ended with ‘it.’
It just didn’t look right to have “it, its” at the end of a line.
I’m sure there’s not much difference in meaning whether I discussed the onion skin first before its roots.
But, poetry deals with the best arrangement of words, and phrases.
And in this case, because my mind was involved, I just decided that —
“I examined a bored bulb of onion, its
Roots white, withered, and hopeless, its
Outer skin dry, flaky, almost purple, not
As dark as the fleshy inner skin next to it.”
— is a lot better than
“I examined a bored bulb of onion, its
Outer skin dry, flaky, almost purple, not
As dark as the fleshy inner skin next to it, its
Roots white, withered, and hopeless.”
*
‘Flaky’ is a late addition in the poem.
It was triggered by the word ‘fleshy’ of the inner layer of the onion.
I liked both the sonic and visual rhyme, the ‘fl’s and the ‘y’s.
I wasn’t even sure of the word ‘flaky’ in the poem at first, but I have tiny fallen bits of dry skin of onions in my onion-and-garlic basket.
They remind me of dandruff flakes.
But now, I’m very sure that “dry, flaky” is beautiful.
*
The most interesting word in this section of the poem is ‘hopeless.’
The rest of the descriptions you will get once you observe an onion bulb closely.
I don’t know about you, but I feel that the roots of an onion are dead and useless.
They are the first things that I cut off when I chop onions.
I kept ‘hopeless’ because later in the poem, it echoes with ‘helpless’ and ‘merciless’ in ‘mercilessly.’
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But describing an onion is hardly a poem.
The poem has to move, and go somewhere beyond mere description.
More explication of the poem will continue in my next column./PN
