The Friday Poem on 02/02/2024
In ’Tammy Wynette’ Dane Holt uses the neat trick of making one word stand in for another. The line “A storm of bad men could not dampen / Tammy Wynette’s spirit. I mean / her hair” sets up the last line, and means he can get away with using the word ‘spirit’ as the last word in the poem without making us feel as if he’s reaching for the abstract or weighty; quite some feat. He’s enjoying playing with tone here – a robust declaration (” ‘Stand By Your Man’ / is, to my ears, the best vocal performance”) is swiftly undercut (“of the worst lyric”) and then tumbles into an honest personal admission (“which goes to show / something. I don’t know.”) The poem is a mosaic of statements out of which meaning seems to arise, like a jigsaw where you don’t really see the image properly until the final piece has been placed.
Tammy Wynette
The only records found in my grandmother’s attic
were by scorned women for scorned women
written by men. ‘Stand By Your Man’
is, to my ears, the best vocal performance
of the worst lyric, which goes to show
something. I don’t know. Something
about how saying one thing so
exactly to someone intent on hearing
the opposite is art. Once and only once
my grandmother told my father
‘you don’t know what I go through
having to live with your father.’
A storm of bad men could not dampen
Tammy Wynette’s spirit. I mean
her hair. I refuse to listen
to that song without crying, or at least
without the taste of hairspray in my mouth.
I had two grandmothers but only
one grandfather. The record I have of the other
is the day he died and the day
of his funeral. My mother missed it.
She looked like Tammy Wynette
when she told me this.
Except for her hair. I mean her spirit.
