{"id":243,"date":"2024-06-30T18:02:48","date_gmt":"2024-06-30T18:02:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/?p=243"},"modified":"2025-06-30T19:59:31","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T19:59:31","slug":"from-the-desire-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/from-the-desire-field\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Desire Field"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Desire Field<\/a>, 1978<\/em><\/p>\n

Nathalie Diaz<\/p>\n

\n

what it means<\/em><\/h3>\n

Two lovers are in bed together. The speaker has anxiety and insomnia. She\u2019s going to cope with them by reframing. Because she trembles with anxiety, she\u2019ll call it \u201cdesire\u201d instead. She says her mind at night is like a beast wandering the fields. She tries to reframe insomnia as something beautiful like spring. Near the end of the poem, she stops trying to cope on her own and asks her lover to help her, to tell her a story that will help her go to sleep.<\/p>\n

You can look at something awful and see it as beautiful.<\/p>\n

It’s ok to admit you need help and to accept it.<\/p>\n

why I like the poem<\/h3>\n

Did you find this poem completely incomprehensible on the first reading? I did. I often talk to friends (looking at you Jim) about the difference between hard poetry that is hard because it\u2019s poorly written gobbledygook and hard because it asks the reader to think hard, to read slowly and carefully, to believe the poem will reveal itself to you with enough effort. That\u2019s frankly why I like this poem. I found it hard, but the more I worked at it, the more I figured out until it blossomed in front of me. I\u2019ve started asking my friends to guide me through fields of art they know well (still looking at you Jim) and trust me when I say they can understand a good hard poem with some support from their trusty poetry guide.<\/p>\n

craft<\/h3>\n

Did I mention that Dia and are writing a book (very early stages) where we share craft moves we learned from reading other poets? Here\u2019s a sample page based on this poem.<\/p>\n

Craft move: Imply the premise.<\/p>\n

Section of the book it goes in: Leaps<\/p>\n

Example: \u201cFrom the Desire Field\u201d by Nathalie Diaz<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t call it\u00a0sleep<\/em>\u00a0anymore.
\nI\u2019ll risk losing something new instead\u2014<\/p>\n

Analysis:<\/h3>\n

Here the logical argument she is making is: calling something by its name means you risk losing it. She starts by saying what she won\u2019t do given that premise: I don\u2019t call it\u00a0sleep<\/em>\u00a0anymore. And then what she will do because of that premise: I\u2019ll risk losing something new instead\u2014<\/p>\n

She never says the premise. The reader has to infer it. This is also an incredible way to sneak in a wisdom statement; you assume its truth.<\/p>\n

Debby\u2019s Tries<\/u><\/h4>\n

Premise: counting 5 things you see can stop you from killing yourself.<\/p>\n

I take a breath and say out loud:<\/p>\n

yellow leaf in the driveway<\/p>\n

songbird<\/p>\n

bright red Japanese maple by the front stairs<\/p>\n

the brass knob set too high<\/p>\n

the yellow door<\/p>\n

I repeat for as long as it takes\u2014<\/p>\n

scorching seconds, frozen hours.<\/p>\n

I want to live.<\/p>\n

DB<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Premise: If you knock on the stranger\u2019s door, you risk becoming a new person.<\/p>\n

We have new neighbors.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t risk changing my life.<\/p>\n

DB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Desire Field, 1978 Nathalie Diaz what it means Two lovers are in bed together. The speaker has anxiety and insomnia. She\u2019s going to cope with them by reframing. Because she trembles with anxiety, she\u2019ll call it \u201cdesire\u201d instead. She says her mind at night is like a beast wandering the fields. She tries…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poem-reviews"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2590,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions\/2590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yayserver.com\/debbiebacharach\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}