Strategy Response 1, Week 11

Piece: "The Surgeon"
Strategy: Villanelle formatting- Surgeons:Lovers correlation; Repetition to emphasize missing identity.


"The Surgeon" is a villanelle that is slightly different from a standard villanelle due to the change in one or two words in the structure of the piece. Traditionally, the lines that reoccur throughout the piece are done so exactly, word for word. But Jillian actually modifies one or two words in the repetition of a line.

For example, “Please call and tell me its name” in line 3 becomes “Please call and whisper my name” in line 9.

Interestingly, it appears that there are very few set/strict forms presented throughout the entire collection. Jillian fluctuates the forms her pieces by writing in couplets, tercets, quatrains, and quintets. Yet "The Surgeon" is the only poem that truly sets itself apart from the others as an easily recognizable villanelle. One could speculate on the purpose behind why Jillian chose this particular form for this particular piece. The recursivity and repetition found in "The Surgeon" villanelle is not nearly as prominent in the rest of the collection.

One stanza that really stood out to me in this piece (in relation to an idea that is repeated utilizing the villanelle format) was the fourth tercet: “When we met, I was young and lame./ I’ve had several others since you./ They left nothing behind when they came.” Naturally, within the context of the poem, one could easily read the stanza as the speaker talking about previous surgeons that she’s hd. Yet in the context of the entire collection, (dealing with relationships, sex, and the body), one could also read the stanza as talking about previous lovers the speaker has had.

In Weise’s collection, a lot of pieces deal with how the speaker’s lover(s) poke, prod, and feel the amputee’s body much in the same way a doctor or surgeon would. In a sense, the lovers are the surgeons and vice versa. Yet stanza two almost seems to speak to specific lovers or surgeons that have impacted the amputee when it states, “You left it behind when you came,” compared to the last line of stanza four stating, “They left nothing behind when they came.”

The notion that a part of the amputee is taken and kept by the recipient of the piece (a surgeon and/or possibly a lover) is emphasized in the lines that are repeated through the villanelle form. The speaker wishes for the name of whatever part of her was taken to be reiterated back to her- the part of her that makes up her identity. This is seen in stanza three: “It doesn’t hurt, so don’t be ashamed/ if you forget who I am as I do/ Please call and whisper my name.”

In contrast with the rest of the collection, there is frequent reference to the fact that the prosthetic leg is an identifiable part of speaker’s self. "The Surgeon" is the one poem where whatever part of the amputee that is missing has no name…the speaker cannot remember the name and so cannot remember herself.