Strategy Response 1, Week 9

Piece: Here Lightning Has Been
Strategy: Movement of Fluidity, Climbing down the latter of specificity

One strategy that is strongly noticeable throughout all of Estes’ pieces it that of movement. She has the talent of effortlessly transitioning the reader from one setting or moment in time to another while also managing to keep the entire poem relative to one particular image, notion or idea. For example, in her piece, “Here Lightning Has Been,” she utilizes the objects of lightening and light as the framework or foundation of her poem. But the way she sculptures the piece around that framework best exemplifies the constitution of her movements.

She goes from speaking of lightening and the divine, to transforming the 'light' from lightening into, “the color of blood that has entered a vein” (16-19). The blood then becomes ink used to imprint upon a diary that belongs to one Nijinsky who, "invented a fountain pen called God" (25-27). Nijinsky then takes over the poem on until the last stanza where Estes uses vivid imagery to describe him: “In 1939, after shock/ treatments, Nijinsky was visited/ by photographers who asked to see/ his famous leap. In one picture Nijinsky appears-in dark/ jacket, trousers, and shoes- highlighted/ against a white wall, a foot/ and a half above the floor, arms/ outstretched and blurred like a hummingbird/ hovering at a flower or a man before/ a firing squad at close range,/ each sip a jeté/ of light."

The picture itself is a contrast of darkness and light, which reflects the nature of the piece in its entirety.

In reference to the last line, a 'jeté' is described as a ballet leap where the weight of the dancer is transferred from one foot to the other. The dancer “throws” one leg to the front, side, or back and holds the other leg in any desired position upon landing.

So Nijinsky is this dancer of “light,” “ink,” “blood,” and “lightening,” all of which relate to each other because of the fluidity and pace that Estes sets in the pieces.

I love the way she is able to find simple connections between words or ideas to connect scenarios that can be on two completely different ends of a spectrum, and then she smoothly brings them together as a whole. People do not often associate lightening with the ink of a pen. Or blood with the graceful leap of a ballet dancer. But Estes was able to do so in a wholeness that was complete and beautiful. I believe her work is the perfect literary symbolism of the Russian dolls that are hidden within each other. The larger doll connects to the smaller one inside of it, no matter how different their outer design may be.

Also, the piece “Here Lightning Has Been" shows how Estes climbs down the latter of specificity: from talking about the divine to narrowing in on a photo of Nijinsky in 1939. I love how she travels inward from a broad idea to one that is much more specific and detailed.