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Jeffrey Huang

Professor Lillmars

Writing 30

21 October 2015

Critical Response to “Blades”

In the chapter “Voice and Style” in the Poet’s Companion, various facets of writing

poetry like subject matter are brought up as things to consider in curtailing a voice, or a style if

you will; Doing so effectively relays the contents of the poetry, the discussion to be had about

the poetry in a way the poet desires to. The subject matter behind “Blades” by C. K. Williams

brings the poem into life, vividly painting the reader’s mind and suggesting compelling

retrospect.

The poem begins with “When I was about eight, I once stabbed somebody another kid, a

little girl.” The frank delivery coupled with the normally day-to-day horrific actions painted in

the line immediate captures the reader’s attention. Whether or not the reader can relate outright

doesn’t matter per se but the main focus to be gathered from here is that the reader immediately

goes into a split-second of retrospect, whether he or she’s been in a similar situation; if he/she

has, there’s already a discussion brewing in the back of his/her head, after the poem’s read—

either way, the reader wants to finish very soon because he/she’s interested.

The poem continues on—the narrator of the poem aka the perpetrator denying any bit of

the stabbing, the ensemble rushing out to see the chaos, the mom of the stabbed hugging the two

lead actors, including the stabber strangely enough, and the reveal that the victim and her mom is

black—and all this along with the frank and sharp diction choice—which will not be discussed

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further here as it is out the scope of this analysis—paints an eerie, gruesome allegory, almost like

a PTSD veteran reminiscing an unsavory story, almost disbelieving it his or herself.

It is the subject matter that causes the reader to start. The beginning line hooks the reader

in and gets him or her to recollect. The ensuing lines reveal to the reader that it’s not an actual

stabbing, the knife was a car antenna reassures the reader, but it doesn’t wholesomely reset the

stance of him or her. After reading the whole poem, the reader realizes that the actual subject

matter of the poem is a man’s recollection of a childhood memory, warped by time and the slant

point of view of a child—or at least his skewed, exaggerated viewpoint as a kid—from shocking

and degenerative (a black kid stabbing a non-black girl) to strange and arguably more shocking

(a non-black kid stabbing a black girl and being let go after both are hugged by the black girl’s

mom). The voice is frank but the subject matter at first appears to be very shocking,

subconsciously preparing the reader for the worse. As the poem progresses, the realization is

spent, the real frame of events is out, and if the reader hasn’t already, he or she is doting on the

similarities he or she’s had in comparison to the narrator of the poem ,whether it be outright or

something psychologically similar, just acted out because of a slanted kid’s viewpoint. Maybe

for example, the reader remembers a giant brawl in his second grade, a great fisticuff between

five or six brutes when in actually it was just one shove from one angsty third grader to another.

The subject matter sold it. With and in the allegorical, meditative voice produced, the

subject matter in “Blades” captures the reader’s attention and coaxes out a parallelism between

the poem and his/her own experience that the latter forces together, in turn amplifying the whole

reading poetry experience, lavishing drawing hues from mind to paper.