“How does, how does, how does it work…?” Asks the speaker in “Echocardiogram” as the poem’s opening. I found this poem in the repetition section of Fishhouse, and was pulled in by the title. The first line made me think the repetition would be reminiscent of a heartbeat, since the repetition of “how does, how does,” has the same beat as a heartbeat. However, this only lasts the first line, and soon the repetition becomes a sign of anxiety in the poem. Phrases are repeated, as are words in different contexts, and ideas continued through this repetition. The last few lines is a run-on sentence that uses repetition to drive home that the “house where love lives” is in a small tin shed stuck in a very tumultuous area, representing that the heart is not nearly as protected as the speaker wishes.
2 Replies to “Suzzane Cleary’s “Echocardiogram””
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Hi Rachel,
I also adored the beginning of this poem – with the ‘how does’ repetition bringing in the -thump, thump- of a heart beating. I also really enjoyed the ‘open-and-shut in’ for the double meaning; both that the valves open and shut and also that the love is ‘shut in’ the dark chest.
There was also a lot of interesting consonance in this poem, that I think built the anxiety – we have the repeat of ‘l’ sounds in lines 9 + 10, and the repeat of ‘s’ sounds right after in 11-13. The repetition of l and s continued throughout the poem, the poem is littered with them. What is about l and s sounds, that they make the poem seem more wishful and sad as we go through – more lonely? Both ls and ss have the capacity, I think, to draw the sound out – instead of quick, harsh noises we get long, lonesome ones.
Hi guys!
Rachel–What captured me about this blog post was the title of the poem.
The poem is more about raising anxieties regarding what the heart is doing, but a lot can be read about what the poem is saying about love. When the speaker says, “I see the part of me that always loves my life” it’s interesting how Cleary is personifying the heart, as if it is its own entity outside the human body.
I also found a lot of the language to be really beautiful despite how fast the poem moves. I really love “So this is the house where love lives, a tin shed in a windstorm, tin shed at the sea’s edge, the land’s edge, waters wild and steady, wild and steady, wild.” I think it says something about the human heart as love itself–infatuation with someone as wild, where a quiet serious relationship is steady.
Great choice, Rachel!
Arianna