Single Poem Review: “Inventing a New Language” by Lara Dolphin
For every logophile, there is the inevitable dilemma when words fail those ineffable moments that are beyond expression. But what if a tailor-made word that would perfectly suit a moment simply doesn’t exist? Lara Dolphin tackles this ‘creator’s conundrum’ in her poem, “Inventing a New Language”.
Dolphin’s poem was published by Silver Birch Press as part of a 2015 series titled, “I am Waiting” in honor Lawrence Ferlinghetti‘s 1958 poem of the same name. While the full submission guidelines for the series is unclear, Dolphin’s emulation of Ferlinghetti’s sparse lines, punctuation, and momentum building of the repetitive phrase, “I am waiting” is a distinct nod to the scaffolding that holds Ferlinghetti’s classic poem together. Dolphin’s poem, however, takes a different direction, focusing on the spectrum of experience in human “waiting”, and how this one generic word simply fails to capture them all. The speaker writes, “If Eskimos have 100 words for snow, / then there ought to be as many words for waiting…” Readers can relate to this kind of lexical gap in so many areas of our lives. I’d argue that there should be word for a cat’s unique comfort in a cardboard box half their size. There should also be a word for my Table for Deuce co-host’s devotion to his Android phone with the fervor of a superhero. I propose “Droidhard” if we are taking notes. But I digress…
Dolphin invokes the myth that Eskimo’s have 100 words for snow, when the truth is their linguistic complexity is in their polysynthetic structures (a.k.a. a shitload of compound words rather than an elite dictionary of distinct words). This misled romanticizing of the Inuit people’s language is not the strong leading line it aims to be, but nevertheless, the reader understands that, for instance, crusty surface snow is different than snow drifted by wind, and similarly, Dolphin pits one form of waiting against the other:
“…what could be more different from a child
waiting to open birthday presents
than Hamlet waiting to kill Claudius
both waiting but not the same thing”
Dolphin’s list of comparisons expands:
“I’m waiting for my Amazon delivery
I am still waiting for a way to describe
how I’m waiting to be kissed
or how we’re all waiting
for the world to address the climate crisis…”
The growing momentum emphasizes that the poet’s examples are not just a range of how one bides their time, but the feeling of being stuck in a holding pattern on a personal, national, or global scale. And this brings us back to the spirit of Ferlinghetti’s Beat Movement poem—a poem that calls on an unknown subject to just make-something-happen, to disrupt the status quo, politically, spiritually, sexually, or otherwise. Dolphin, attempts her own call to action in the poem’s second stanza:
“so until there’s a word to describe
how I’m waiting for the laundry to finish
as opposed to how I’m waiting
for the world’s poets to stand up to power
I’ll still be here waiting.”
“Inventing a New Language” reminds the reader that so many poets are, and can be, unsung neologists in the world, exciting our mind and spirit by creatively verbalizing what otherwise stays unnamed. Unfortunately, Dolphin’s dismay with language limitations, her seemingly vague disappointment in her fellow poets, and expectation that someone else should do the linguistic (or literal) heavy lifting fails to be the counter-culture anthem of our time.
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A native of Pennsylvania, Lara Dolphin is an attorney, nurse, wife and mom of four amazing kids. Her chapbooks include In Search Of The Wondrous Whole (Alien Buddha Press), Chronicle Of Lost Moments (Dancing Girl Press), and At Last a Valley (Blue Jade Press).
Currently Reading:
Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
What in the World?! by Leanne Morgan
Love Poems in Quarantine by Sarah Ruhl
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