Apollonia Ponders by Charlotte Knight
For November’s Poem of the Month, I have chosen to write about the poem Apollonia Ponders by Charlotte Knight which was published recently in the first online issue of SPAM zine.
There are lots of things I like about this poem. It has a kind of surreal quality to it, strange images such as “stuffed vine leaves / we pass between our mouths” and “our tongues became petals”. But there is also, in some ways, nightmarish undertones, such as with the line “What if we kissed / and all my teeth fell into your mouth”, which recalls the classic dream in which your teeth all fall out. The meaning behind this type of dream is supposed to be loss, or important life changes, and this idea is addressed again later in the poem: “What if teeth = rejection / and every dream has a meaning” which seems to indicate that the poem is perhaps linked to a lost love/breakup, or the feeling of losing someone. The pain of this is made final in the last few lines: “What if we invoked each other / for toothache / for some other pain”.
The poem is structured by a series of questions beginning with “What if”. This also adds to the dream-like quality, the feeling that what is happening in the poem might not be real. This thought is also accentuated by the fact that the poem looks to be in the shape of a crescent moon. Recurring ideas crop up throughout the poem, beginning with the teeth as a source of loss and pain (as discussed previously), then moving on to the idea of pink liquid to describe intangible things, but things that are positive or good (“What if we kissed / and the kiss was pink liquid”, and later “What if every poem / was a pink liquid”). The narrator then pauses on the idea of Christianity/saintliness with the lines “What if I was of notable / Christian faith” and “a saintly presence”. The poem seems to alternate between positive and negative imagery, going from “What if soft island / a saintly presence” to “What if we jumped into the fire”, which has connotations of hell, the opposite of a saintly presence. I like the way the poem is kind of in two parts, the first half ending at “What if teeth = rejection / and every dream has a meaning” and how the second half echoes the first, as though ideas and fragments reverberate through the lines.
The title of the poem is interesting. Apollonia, in Latin terms, means belonging to Apollo. Apollo was the Greek god of sun, light, music and poetry. This reference is hinted at throughout the poem with words like “golden”, “poem” and “fire”. However, it feels very much like this poem is centred in the abstract, despite the vivid imagery. Lines such as “What if goat’s milk”, “What if we jumped into the fire / and you a husband” and “What if soft island” appear as brushstrokes, flirting an idea or thought but never expanding on it. This poem invites you to read it and read it again. The sparse language invites the readers own interpretations, their own meanings between the spaces of the lines.
You can read the full poem here.
Text and illustration by Rochelle Roberts
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Pooling, a zine of poetry, prose and artwork printed by Tender Hands Press. Available to buy now.
