Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Belle Waring’s Breeze in Translation is a vivid, free-flowing poem that captures the exuberance of creativity, the nuances of language, and the defiant energy of women artists pushing back against dismissive criticism. The poem’s structure is loose and conversational, mirroring the improvisational nature of jazz, with abrupt line breaks and rapid shifts in tone and focus. The repeated phrase word for introduces a sequence of definitions, as if the speaker is both translating experience into language and redefining the meanings imposed by others.

The poem opens with an intimate, everyday moment: Me, I like to putz in the kitchen and regard / fat garlic and hum about nothing. The verb putz is casual, suggesting an unhurried, almost meditative activity. The mention of fat garlic adds a sensory detail that grounds the speaker’s world in the tangible, domestic, and bodily. The phrase hum about nothing evokes a kind of thoughtless contentment, a rhythmic movement through daily life.

The next shift introduces Breeze, a character who immediately disrupts this ordinary scene. The phrase this character taps me signals both surprise and familiarity, as if Breeze is an old friend or a trickster figure who appears unexpectedly. She says, remember me, mon amie?—a phrase that combines English and French, suggesting both intimacy and a playfulness with language. Breeze is described as a scholarship girl at the School of Fine Arts, marking her as talented but likely coming from a background where access to elite art institutions isn’t taken for granted. The reference to dragging down the street / in a hundred-and-four heat is tied to the first word for blues—a feeling of exhaustion, movement slowed to a crawl, the body weighed down by the sheer heat of existence.

Language in this poem is both a game and a necessity. The speaker keeps offering words for emotions or experiences, as if searching for the right translation for complex, lived moments. Word for trance follows an introduction to Breeze’s presence, suggesting that the speaker falls into a kind of hypnotic state under Breeze’s influence. Later, word for kismet introduces a moment of fate, when the two travel by train and encounter a woman making lace even in the darkness of tunnels. The imagery of the old walnut woman crafting lace with an eye-fine hook suggests patience, dedication, and artistry that persists even in obscurity. This moment contrasts with the dismissive question of the art critic later in the poem: Why have there been so few / great women artists?

The critic’s question is immediately met with anger, resistance, and mockery. The word is jerkoff, the speaker declares, rejecting the assumption that greatness is reserved for men. Breeze, who is terrifyingly fluent, challenges the critic to sew a bride’s dress. From scratch. The act of sewing, traditionally considered women’s work, is reframed as a skill beyond the critic’s comprehension. Breeze spits, By hand. French lace. The final image elevates lace-making—a delicate, precise, and time-consuming craft—to an act of defiance, reclaiming traditionally feminized labor as something intricate and valuable.

Throughout the poem, Breeze embodies artistic defiance, improvisation, and raw talent. She sings scat all the way to the opening, invoking jazz’s fluidity and resistance to formal constraints. The critic’s dismissal of optimism as vulgar reveals his cynicism and elitism, but Breeze and the speaker refuse to be constrained by his judgments. Instead, they position themselves as femmes aux barricades!—women at the barricades, revolutionaries in the world of art.

The poem ultimately celebrates resilience, creativity, and the power of language to redefine experience. The fragmented, fast-moving structure mirrors the way ideas and emotions collide, resisting neat categorization. Waring’s Breeze in Translation is not just about translation in the linguistic sense but about translating lived experiences—especially those of women—into art, history, and defiant survival.

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