Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"On Touring Her Hometown" by Lorna Dee Cervantes is a poignant exploration of return and reflection, a journey back to the roots that shaped the speaker’s identity, laden with the complexities of memory and change. The poem navigates through landscapes both physical and emotional, invoking images of decay, resilience, and the inescapable pull of one’s origins. Cervantes uses vivid imagery and powerful metaphors to convey a sense of displacement and longing, weaving a narrative that is both deeply personal and universally resonant.

The opening line, "I'm going away to where I'm from," sets the stage for a paradoxical journey—a departure that is also a return, suggesting a complex relationship with the notion of home and origin. This theme of fleeing from "visions, fences grinning from the post" introduces a haunting atmosphere, where even the inanimate bears witness to the passage of time and the accumulation of experiences that both define and confine.

The speaker's request for "a hole with a past to it" speaks to a desire to excavate the layers of history and memory that underpin her sense of self and place. The invocation of "your wicked engines" and "the gun of holidays" further complicates this landscape with elements of violence and disruption, hinting at the tumultuous events and emotions that have marked the speaker’s relationship with her hometown.

Cervantes' portrayal of marigolds "six feet under" eating "the names of the dead" is a powerful image of beauty and vitality emerging from death and forgetting, symbolizing the cyclical nature of life and the enduring presence of those who have passed. This imagery serves as a reminder of the thin veil between the living and the dead, and the ways in which the past continues to nourish and haunt the present.

The poem delves deeper into the underworld of the speaker’s memories with references to "hovels under these caverns" and "liquids marry and paint themselves a mauve display," suggesting the merging of disparate elements into a new, albeit unsettling, synthesis. This underworld is not just a place of darkness but also of transformation and unexpected beauty.

Cervantes introduces a "silence, lean as ghosts" as a call from within the mists of the city, embodying the isolation and otherness that the speaker feels even within the familiar confines of her hometown. The mention of "cedar, ash sage, an owl on the grave of this town" invokes natural and mystical elements, grounding the poem in a sense of place that is both sacred and scarred, "the width of sin."

The poem concludes with the speaker's assertion that "crying's like hating, it won't ever pay," a reflection on the futility of resentment and sorrow in the face of inevitability. The repeated declaration of departure, "I'm going away to where I'm from," underscores the inevitable pull of one's roots and the complex dance of leaving and returning that defines our relationship with the places that have shaped us.

"On Touring Her Hometown" is a rich and layered meditation on identity, memory, and the landscapes that haunt and hold us. Through her masterful use of language and imagery, Cervantes invites readers to reflect on their own journeys of return and the ways in which our origins continue to inform and challenge us.

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