My interest in Nick and Zadie's marriage borders on voyeuristic.
I wonder about their daily activities. Do they write on separate floors in their home, shouting back and forth to each other when they've written something especially perfect? Are their nightly conversations in bed brimming with the lyrical genius evident in their writing? Do they compete with each other, comparing book reviews over lunch?
I don't know the answers to these questions, which is why I have to satisfy myself with Laird's most recent collection of poems entitled On Purpose. Luckily for me, they feature a meditation on marriage based on Sun Tzu's The Art of War that, at times, paints a painfully clear image of his marriage.
My favorite, "Offensive Strategy," offers plenty of insight into what sort of husband he might be.
Lately the tablets are making no difference.
I have started to cry during adverts again,
and dogs in particular set me off like a drain.
When I get into a fight queuing for petrol
you lie to your friends to account for my temper
and make me ring up for another appointment.
You want me to get a second opinion,
though you put it all down to my father,
just as my mother puts it all down to his.
Another way I can tell it is all going wrong
is I can't get enough nicotine in my system
and nothing will force me to speak.
I run for an hour and still can't get to sleep.
I seem to spend most of my time starting books
and then putting them back on the shelf.
Also, since punching the wall of the study
last Thursday I've been waking each dawn
with a fatter man's hand at the end of my wrist.
It is swollen and red and doesn't quite bend
while my fingers are stiff and insist on remaining
gestured away from the body, as if in disgust.
I love Laird's poetry. The url for this blog is in fact taken from his poem "On Beauty" (but more on that in my next post). "Offensive Strategy" demonstrates not only Laird's talent, but his bravery. He could not have written a more raw exposure of depression, and not once does he flinch. His ability to describe punching the wall with such lovely eloquence blows me away.
My favorite stanza beginning "Another way I can tell..." practically makes me want to take up smoking for the purpose of being able to use those lines when I simply do not want to talk to anyone.
As honest as Laird is in On Purpose, I can't imagine such personal revealings could be easy to share with the world. As much as I fantasize about a marriage between two writers, I think I might be livid if my husband wrote about our marriage with such truthful detail.
It cannot be easy to encounter the love of your life in black and white, presenting his struggles on the page in front of you. And so for now, I am content to bury myself in Laird's poems and not romanticize a marriage I know nothing about. After all, as honest as these poems are, no amount of words can ever capture the essence of anything, let alone a marriage.
I have started to cry during adverts again,
and dogs in particular set me off like a drain.
When I get into a fight queuing for petrol
you lie to your friends to account for my temper
and make me ring up for another appointment.
You want me to get a second opinion,
though you put it all down to my father,
just as my mother puts it all down to his.
Another way I can tell it is all going wrong
is I can't get enough nicotine in my system
and nothing will force me to speak.
I run for an hour and still can't get to sleep.
I seem to spend most of my time starting books
and then putting them back on the shelf.
Also, since punching the wall of the study
last Thursday I've been waking each dawn
with a fatter man's hand at the end of my wrist.
It is swollen and red and doesn't quite bend
while my fingers are stiff and insist on remaining
gestured away from the body, as if in disgust.
I love Laird's poetry. The url for this blog is in fact taken from his poem "On Beauty" (but more on that in my next post). "Offensive Strategy" demonstrates not only Laird's talent, but his bravery. He could not have written a more raw exposure of depression, and not once does he flinch. His ability to describe punching the wall with such lovely eloquence blows me away.
My favorite stanza beginning "Another way I can tell..." practically makes me want to take up smoking for the purpose of being able to use those lines when I simply do not want to talk to anyone.
As honest as Laird is in On Purpose, I can't imagine such personal revealings could be easy to share with the world. As much as I fantasize about a marriage between two writers, I think I might be livid if my husband wrote about our marriage with such truthful detail.
It cannot be easy to encounter the love of your life in black and white, presenting his struggles on the page in front of you. And so for now, I am content to bury myself in Laird's poems and not romanticize a marriage I know nothing about. After all, as honest as these poems are, no amount of words can ever capture the essence of anything, let alone a marriage.
I don't understand how "Offensive Strategy" reveals what sort of husband Nick Laird is. Even if this is Nick Laird talking about himself, it doesn't offer any secret glances into his marriage, except to explain how Zadie reacts to his depression.
ReplyDeleteAlso, though your musings about their marriage are funny, I hope they don't do the things you mentioned. Marriage and relationships are hard enough, without having to worry about intense literary competition. Everyone knows famous literary couples, but people never notice when a literary genius marries a commoner. I predict a Smith/Laird divorce by 2011, based on the assumption that two inflating heads cannot share the same space forever.