Dusting

“Free Verses” by Sarah Kirsch, trans. Rita Dove (1998)

Dove published several translated or co-translated poems in the October-November 1998 issue of Poetry Magazine. The title of the poem is a pun. Read one way, it describes the form: the poem itself, like much of Dove’s own writing, is unmetered and unrhymed. Read another way, it describes the premise: after a nighttime epiphany, the speaker decides to “say goodbye” (Line 2) to their precious verses, releasing them to fend for themselves. Translating from German, Dove captures Kirsch’s dry humor for an English-speaking audience in plain poetic language:

        It’s not possible to keep them

        Forever! here under the roof.

Poor things. They must set out for town.

        A few will be allowed to return later (Lines 5-8).

“Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou (1983)

Subtle caged bird imagery appears throughout Beulah’s section of Thomas and Beulah. Her section is titled “Canary in Bloom,” and the color yellow appears in several poems. Beulah and the caged bird in this poem are both trapped, and both of them chase freedom. In “Dusting,” Beulah escapes the captivity of her life by revisiting happy memories from her past. In Angelou’s poem, the caged bird attempts to escape by singing about the freedom it has never known, but still longs for.