One of the best compliments I’ve ever heard is “I’m rooting for you.” I was playing a game of Bananagrams at Felix (the best words come out after your second French 75) when our server came by, saw my board, and spoke those four lovely words toward me.
Not only is the word choice interesting–to root? I’m growing roots for you? It’s far more casual than “I believe in you” and far less affectionate. When I looked up the origin of the phrase (idiom?), I found it is from the British word “rout” meaning to bellow, usually related to cattle. So, how we got from cattle yelling to encouragement, I don’t know.
But if we really think about it, the idea of rooting for someone is so beautiful. To be their support, their physical roots something grounding them while they grow or go out on a limb. Rooting for someone means supporting them with no gain of their own, simply basking in someone else’s joy or achievements.
I didn’t need someone to root for me at that moment (it was a very low-stakes game), but it was nice to know that someone was on my side. In that moment he was actively thinking about me and wanting me to win. There are people in our lives who root for us daily with no gain besides our happiness. Yet, this wonderful stranger who happened to enjoy my friend and my game of buzzed Bananagrams was rooting for me.
My name is Lilly Flowers and a few days ago I got to pick out a random literary magazine from a pile of them in my professor’s office. Our class focuses on copy editing and the publishing industry, and much of the conversation centers around the kind of jobs one can get with editing experience. I chose the “‘Arts & Letters” spring 2023 edition of the Journal of Contemporary Culture published by Georgia College. To be honest, I mostly picked it out because of the pretty cover (see the bottom of the post), but inside I found some wonderful works of poetry and prose. Some of them are not as bright and cheery as the cover, however.
Iowa City, Iowa by Jesse Lee Kercheval
Smoke, horizon, cornfield, windbreak, road, an implicit plot all disconnected as of by jigsaw blade, amputated pine boughs, gouged sky, fissures of horizon. Only when I write, staring for hours, do the bits begin to fit. I sense a compression in my spine. I match some pieces but others, red as marrow, won’t fit unless I force them. I tire. As always. I lift my eyes to window. Sky and bare limbs like saw cuts. A cloud like a torn blouse. I can’t assemble this.
I could feel the frustration so viscerally the first time I read this poem. The choppy lists of images painting the vast unchanging physical land around them show the monotony of having to always be creating, thinking of something, imagining. Jesse Lee connects the physical land with her mind; the landscape is in pieces and so is she. She’s trying to make something, but all her ideas aren’t fully formed, “amputated pine boughs…fissures of horizon…bare limbs like saw cuts.” These words are sharp like our own thoughts when we can’t write. So much of our worth is bound up in what we can create when you cannot measure your worth by that.
Although the poem is named “Iowa City, Iowa,” Iowa could be anywhere for the reader. The place they’re stuck: a hometown, a city they’ve outgrown, or a state of mind. Iowa is someplace where, after being there, nothing seems to fit. “Disconnected as of by jigsaw blade” it’s as if we’re confused and unsettled about our physical, or mental, surroundings. We no longer fit into that space therefore it cannot support us.
The spine is an interesting body part to focus on in this piece. It connects the entire body and when the spine is damaged it’s devastating. The “compression” Jesse Lee feels is the brink of what is coming. She’s on the edge of devastation and complete burnout if she doesn’t take care of herself. Forcing yourself to make something and “staring for hours” are not ways to motivate yourself.
By the end of the poem, it feels like Jesse Lee has given up. She cannot assemble this. It’s a definitive statement. But I don’t think that we should see this as a failure. Jesse Lee hints at the idea of a break, as in taking a break. For such a short piece, she is communicating a lot through her imagery connected to the physical body. The internal and external are working together to scream at you “Take a break! You cannot create under these conditions!” Your body needs a break, your mind needs a rest, and maybe you need a change of scenery.
