Thomas Dunn on Shaoni C. White’s “Swarm, Field”

Initially, when I set out to write about Shaoni C. White’s “Swarm, Field” I only intended to write about its formal elements.  I planned to leave a glowing review of both the poet and the poem’s decisions.  I would not allow myself to get too close. 

In earlier drafts, I had achieved just that. My comments often circled White’s consistent use of I-statements or the increasing power of its hard end stops for most of its 13 lines, as well as their subsequent tilting effect. Alluding to how each off-set parentheses offered a turn to the previous line which felt like an extended combo in Super Smash Bros, I wrote about how tilting makes every word in the 2-Dimensional space of a page become almost 3-D. For a few weeks, I was successful at keeping the poem at a distance. However, this is the real world. Over the course of a month a lot can change. Especially when it comes to one’s relationship to any piece of writing, the path to falling in love with poems is never as linear as I would prefer.

The first time I read “Swarm, Field” I was surrounded by strangers. In the middle of boarding a flight to Denver, I quickly read the poem to myself. Dreading the 8-hour overnight lay-over ahead of a 6am flight to Detroit, I decided to copy the poem into a thin brown notebook after making it to my seat. The airline didn’t provide in-flight Wi-Fi, so I would need a hard copy to review during the 3-hour trip.  

Being a poet in the airport is always incredibly strange.  A fact, I tend to forget until other passengers are avoiding my gaze. Shifting in their seats, trying not to make obvious eye contact to seem like they’re not trying to read what I’m writing.  

I’ve learned to just roll my eyes and continue. After all, White’s poem and a phone call with a friend later would be the only things keeping me company during my overnight stay at the Denver Airport. I finished copying and pretend to go to sleep.

By the time I arrived in Denver, almost everything was closed. Most of the lights were off in the terminal. The only shop with its lights still on was a single convenience store. I ran and bought a 12-oz bottle of orange juice, a stale bag of trail-mix, and a grey sweatshirt which proudly displaying the words “Denver” in navy blue to use as a blanket for the night. All of which were overpriced and felt completely useless. 

Later, while trying to fall sleep on the carpeted floor in an abandoned hallway, I kept turning.  I would face one wall before rolling over to face the other side of the narrow hallway. Determined to not return to the uncomfortable dark-colored airport chairs, I repeated this until I was moments away from sleep. My eyes cloaked themselves with sleep and persistent yellow slivers from the overhead lights. Moments away from sleep, White’s first line was still fumbling around in my head to the point not knowing their exact wording bothered me. Seconds later, after deciding that I simply could not go to sleep until I knew the exact phrase, I opened my phone to scratch this incessant itch: “I held still for what lingered on my palate.”  

Knowing was comforting.  Although, there was a somewhat sinister vibe nestled in the word “lingered”, the opening invited me to do the same. Despite not being able to fully imagine how a field looks when pouring from a glass, I trusted the poem enough to hold still. Language washed over me. 

Within minutes I fell asleep to the gentle hum an HVAC unit. I woke up to an announcement of my flight boarding.  White’s first line rattling around my head like pocket change.

A week passed; I left Michigan.  Returning to my studio apartment in San Francisco.  A few friends have been more than happy to let me know they envy me for living alone. I’m learning to respond by smiling graciously. I don’t tell them that living alone means only two things: I clean and think about everything more than I want to.  

Maybe that’s the reason I began to spending more time with “Swarm, Field”.  The more I read the poem, the more I noticed White’s language creeping into my everyday life. 

I caught myself performing mundane tasks to the rhythm of White’s simple “I + Verb” structure.  Instead of tipping “each jeweled eye into the wardrobe”, I narrated sweeping crumbs into small piles on the floor.  Instead of tucking “what remained in the wall”, I pressed each corner of the bedsheet along the frame, or I put laundry into baskets and carried them downstairs.  For weeks the offset parentheses—

an aside (every line, nuanced stage directions).

Last week while washing dishes, a strange thought tugged at the hemline of my pants.  As if stuck, I couldn’t help wondering what does a field looks when poured from a glass—something I was unable to visualize even a week prior.  

   (It was odd.) 

White’s image had been with me for a month, but this was the first time I saw the deep greens in the field or trees sloshing around the cup. Even the critters, deer scuttling along the wood’s edge or light brushing every surface the speaker sees in “Swarm, Field” was close enough to touch.  

Everything, including floating dogwood seeds, could be plucked from the breeze inside the glass and be tossed into the living room to continue their mid-air jaunt through my apartment and out my window.

I stood at the sink for a while before squirting another dollop of Dawn dish soap into the cup, smiling.  Hot water stings my hands as I cleared away the suds only moments ago were clouds.

Simply put, “Swarm, Field” does what all good poems must: Inspire its reader to see a world through its eyes.  However, White has achieved what many great poets cannot—which is change the reader without them realizing they were under construction. And this poem has seeped into me.  Undeniable, as an earworm—the way that poetry has to be—slow-moving creek water that finds its way into everything for months without the reader knowing.  

I was enraptured, willing 

(to submit to whatever rules were contained in the poem). 

An entire world I was happy to live inside. 

Every poem requires a certain amount of world-building.  As a poet, I love dreaming about the power contained in a single word, or how punctuation marks and line breaks inform both rhythm—the fact where and how words are placed create their own idiosyncratic meaning within the poem. 

I’m never sure if it is fortunate or unfortunate when a poem casts a spell on me as a reader. However, “Swarm, Field” is masterful in that regard.  Before I knew it White’s poem was a part of me; before I knew it, I was living according its rules.