she whiled away her time
in confinement
always inside looking out
watching, longing, dreaming
when liberation came
from the corrugated cell
walking upright proved difficult
her back was hunched
and shoulders slumped
exposure to the wind was harsh
and the elements were cruel
she missed the view
and she yearned
for the smoothness
of the cardboard flaps
Amy Corbin has been previously published in the filling Station, The Cynic, Ascent Aspirations, Shine, Haruah: A Breath of Heaven and Every Day Fiction. She likes calamari.
Posted on March 11, 2009 in Poems
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19 Responses to “LIVING IN A BOX • by Amy Corbin”
Comments
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March 11th, 2009 at 6:10 am
In spite of the bleakness here, I like the way this ends with the longing for smoothness.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:10 am
If you capitalize “she” on the first line, put a comma after “confinement,” capitalize “always,”, etcetera, there would issue a couple of clearly stated prose sentences and eliminate the offence of pretending that it’s short lines that make poetry.
Also – the poet whiled away her time, unperceptively imagining a situation she could not possibly witness and no doubt misunderstood.
March 11th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Thanks, Kathleen.
Roberta,
Wow! Tell me how you really feel. I’m sorry I offended you. You seem to know an awful lot about me considering we’ve never met.
March 11th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Amy-
I don’t know you at all – I know people. People who are confined don’t merely “while away their time.” They write songs or plan insurrections. Smoothness is out of the question.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Hey Roberta,
I didn’t think that we’d met.
The person that I wrote about does while away her time. It is more of a self-imposed prison…if that makes sense.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:16 am
I really enjoyed this. The fact that the box had twisted and deformed her – yet she yearned for its return… Very true to life, I feel.
March 11th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Amy: Don’t worry about explaining yourself…if people don’t get it, they don’t get it. I got it–and *you* got a 5 from me. Believe me, I am Scroogelike with fives.
March 11th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Those mataphorical cardboard flaps made perfect sense to us, Amy – that longing for the familiar – even when the familiar is bad. It’s part of the human condition…
March 11th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Oh Amy,
Don’t engage with folks whose world is so small. Yes, many are in their own safe-made prisons–and as Oonah said cardboard flaps, and their smoothness,thier safety, make perfect sense.
You’ve heard the term-’the devil you know’
But for me, I pictured a box with a lone, lovely flower that was returned to the same box it came in after it grew old.
–dj
March 11th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
I think we can all identify with confining ourselves within our safe little boxes from time to time. I enjoyed this work.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Thank you all for your nice comments.
sj: I looked at your website, such a pretty picture!
Sharon, thanks for the 5. It means even more because you don’t just hand them out.
Oonah, it’s true — it’s part of the human condition.
dj, thanks…and yeah, “the devil you know”.
angel, thank you for reading and commenting.
March 11th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
I liked it! And Amy, poetry is nothing if not a place to bend the rules and conventions of punctuation and capitalization to suit our fancy or even the deeper purpose of our poem. Look at e.e. cummings as an example.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:40 am
I like it, too, Amy. Well done.
March 12th, 2009 at 7:11 am
What did her “whiling” consist of? Maybe you meant she sat and did nothing. “Whiling” means keeping busy constructively waiting for a return of a soldier, or the entry of troops of deliverance, or other some important event that must take place before relief may be met or confinement ended. For example, “whiling may be patching old socks. “Whiling” is not a safe little box. It’s doing the best one can in a negative and limited situation.
March 12th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Thanks, Rachel!
Thank you, Robin.
Roberta,
I get it. You don’t like it! Really, I’m okay with you not liking it. Whiling means to idly pass the time.
March 13th, 2009 at 6:44 am
Yes, I admire E.E. Cummings too. It definitely is not twisted prose.
March 13th, 2009 at 6:54 am
Yes, I admire E.E. Cummings too. His work definitely is not twisted prose.
March 13th, 2009 at 7:12 am
djbarber’s idea that this poem describes a potted flower delivered in a cardboard box seems a very good one to me. It would explain why it wasn’t upright (par. 7) at first. It’s being out in the sunlight would make it grow straight. (But plants don’t walk.) If it’s a bulb it would, in season, be put back into the box until the next spring. And so, it would describe an anthropomorphized bulb and not a song writing plotter or sweater knitter. All it has to do is look pretty for the waterer.
I apologize to Amy Corbin; I thought it was primarily about people.
October 15th, 2009 at 6:36 am
roberta.
shut up. jesus christ.we understand that no one can live up to your expectations in poetry.
amy.
really nice poem. (: i enjoyed it.