(Friday) Poetry Blogging: The Witch in the Glass

I haven't done any poetry blogging in months, but I found this one recently and loved it, so here it is for your edification (that's a joke):

The Witch in the Glass

By Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt


“My mother says I must not pass
Too near that glass;
She is afraid that I will see
A little witch that looks like me,
With a red, red mouth to whisper low
The very thing I should not know!”

“Alack for all your mother’s care!
A bird of the air,
A wistful wind, or (I suppose
Sent by some hapless boy) a rose,
With breath too sweet, will whisper low
The very thing you should not know!”

~~~~~

I will admit that I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

(Which is why I'm writing this--I want to puzzle it out.)

The poet, SMB Piatt, has apparently long been considered a "minor" American civil-war-era poet; but there is some movement afoot to resurrect her. Now, I am not an expert on poetry; but there is something in this piece that makes it difficult for me to accept it as the work of a "minor" poet. It is almost Blakean (and here is where Jane Dark will correct me, if needed) in its apparent simplicity of structure and the complicated symbolic core. What is "the very thing she should not know?"

From one article: "As reveiwers frequently complained, Piatt is a subtle writer, subtle enough sometimes to make Emily Dickinson look like she wields a two-by-four."

Yes.

In any case, on the surface, the point seems fairly obvious: the narrator of the first paragraph, a young girl, has been warned by her mother not to take notice of her appearance. More specifically, not to be aware that she is beautiful. This is the "very thing I should not know," which she will learn from "a little witch" in the mirror--in other words, herself.

And this is where it gets interesting. Her reflection is a little witch? Her mother told her this? Why is it that she must not be aware of her own attractiveness?

And then the second verse--who is its narrator? I don't think it's apparent, except that it's intended to be someone older and wiser. And his or her message is stark: something will tell her. She will learn from other people, from their reactions, perhaps from a boy, that she is beautiful--and then what?

Twelve lines--but look how much is packed in!

There is, for instance, the question of why she should be unaware of her beauty. Will it damage herself, or others, or both? What is at stake? Is it simply modesty, or is there something deeper going on? It doesn't seem likely to be just modesty--the reference to "your mother's care" is almost tragic--but even if it is, what does it mean that a social more is so important to young girls of a certain station? There is, foremost, a commentary on gender roles here: not only the emphasis on modesty, but the sense of danger from transgressing and the hopelessness of being able to adhere to this code.

And then--a witch?

Of course, witches have been used as symbols of the dangers of female power, especially that form of traditional female power founded on sexuality (traditional, that is, in the sense that for many centuries or millennia it was the only form of power women were supposed to hold or wield). So her reflection is a witch--malevolent, evil and magical--that will ruin her by telling her that she is beautiful. But ruin her how?

What is even more confounding is that all of this comes from her mother. It isn't jealous rivals telling her she's stuck up, or desirous boys, or even older men. It is her mother, presumably someone who is considering her best interests. Her mother tells her that her reflection of her own beauty is a witch that will ruin her. Which makes me think of Chinese mothers in the era of foot-binding, crushing the bones in their daughter's feet so that they could join the elite.

(What, you thought they just grew that small within the wrappings? No; the toes were bound to the bottom of the foot and the girl was forced to walk and dance, by her mother, no matter how much she screamed, so that the bones would break; and then the foot would be bound down tighter again and the process repeated until the crushed and mangled limb was as small as possible.)

And isn't it similar? Here is a mother who is deforming her daughter emotionally so that she can fulfill a societally mandated feminine role and achieve success within it. (Not saying it's the same--but that in both cases you have a mother purposefully damaging her daughter for her own material good.)

All of this in one verse of a short poem of a "minor" poet.

Posted by Andrea at September 28, 2006 7:59 AM under Friday Poetry Blogging

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