Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Dara Wier’s "Unintentional Counter-Contemplative Opaque Disunities" is a surreal, rapid-fire meditation on language, violence, economics, and the absurdity of modern anxieties. The poem resists traditional coherence, embracing a free-associative structure that mirrors the chaos of thought in an overstimulated, fragmented world. Wier juxtaposes high and low registers of speech, colliding domestic imagery with abstract philosophizing, irony with sincerity, and violence with humor. This tension between discordant elements—between contemplation and disruption—drives the poem’s destabilizing energy.

The opening line immediately shocks with an act of violence: "When I popped you up side the head with the harp of a piano / It wasn't intentional." This moment combines the physical force of a blow with the elegance of music, an incongruity that sets the tone for the rest of the poem. The phrase "harp of a piano" invokes the instrument’s internal structure, suggesting both the grandeur of sound and the mechanical fragility beneath it. The speaker’s casual claim that it "wasn't intentional" introduces an ironic detachment, as if the act were an accident or an inevitability—perhaps even an allegory for unintended harm in relationships or social structures.

Wier then shifts to a surreal economic calculation: "The number of times I've said I'm sorry / Is equal to the combined incomes of medium tall people who / Self-identify as impoverished, under-employed, willing to work / In alternative bluegrass ensembles for tips." This passage satirizes both the quantification of guilt and the precarious state of labor, particularly in artistic communities. The speaker’s apologies—implied to be numerous—are rendered in financial terms, absurdly equated to the earnings of struggling musicians. The specificity of "medium tall people" humorously underscores the arbitrary nature of measurement in contemporary identity and economic discourse. Wier pokes fun at the way language, particularly in bureaucratic and sociological settings, attempts to categorize and quantify the unquantifiable.

From this meditation on guilt and economy, the poem pivots toward existential anxiety: "Look at us, heading / Around a corner fretting about which vegetables will be killing / Us next." This line captures modern paranoia about health and consumption, the ever-present fear that even something as fundamental as food might betray us. The phrase "heading around a corner" suggests movement toward an uncertain future, while the exaggerated concern over "which vegetables" reflects how fear can manifest in the mundane.

The next section introduces a metaphor of incompatibility: "If I'm a fret and you're the fuselage of an air-ship I'm / Afraid we'll have little to do with one another." A fret—a raised ridge on the fingerboard of a guitar—has no functional connection to the body of an airship, highlighting disconnection between the speaker and the addressee. The contrast between something small and intricate (a fret) and something vast and aerial (an airship) might symbolize differing worldviews, experiences, or modes of thought.

Wier then introduces a critique of community and transparency: "I hear someone / Say we're trying to establish a transparent community, I think, no, / More like a collection of lint collectors, barbs in our brains, / Viscosity extreme, and then it's time to be sucked down a drain." The phrase "transparent community" evokes ideals of openness and honesty, but the speaker dismisses it as an illusion, comparing it instead to a gathering of "lint collectors"—people accumulating detritus, gathering fragments of meaning rather than true connection. "Barbs in our brains" suggests mental friction, persistent irritations that prevent clarity. The phrase "viscosity extreme" conveys a sense of thickness or resistance, as if thought itself has become sluggish or entangled. The final image of being "sucked down a drain" reinforces the idea of inevitability, the sensation of being pulled toward dissolution or disappearance.

The speaker then shifts to a preference for clarity: "I tend to like my emotional and intellectual extortions plain." The phrase "emotional and intellectual extortions" suggests that both feelings and ideas are coercive forces, that they demand something from us. Yet the desire for them to be "plain" implies a longing for simplicity amid the chaos of interpretation.

A strange, almost mythic image follows: "The cougar positioned by the kitchen sink should not collapse." The juxtaposition of "cougar"—a powerful, wild animal—and "kitchen sink"—a domestic object—creates a surreal visual. The line implies that the cougar represents some kind of stability, a force that must remain standing. It could symbolize primal energy within the constraints of everyday life, or the need for something untamed to resist domestic collapse.

This thought expands into an impossible equation: "I want the cougar to be equal to the combined velocity of the new / Light that moves in circles, like when you let your eyes let my eyes / Take in your eyes." The attempt to equate a physical creature to a concept as abstract as "the combined velocity of the new light that moves in circles" demonstrates the poem’s resistance to logical resolution. The speaker turns toward intimacy—"like when you let your eyes let my eyes / Take in your eyes." This moment of connection is recursive, emphasizing perception itself rather than what is seen.

Finally, the poem concludes with a negation: "Our next target won't be located, it cannot be." This statement suggests futility, the impossibility of ever fully pinning down meaning, intention, or direction. The target—whether it represents understanding, resolution, or simply the next step—remains elusive.

Wier’s poem plays with disunity—both in structure and content—forcing the reader to engage with its unpredictable leaps in thought. It satirizes modern anxieties, intellectual jargon, and the impossibility of true transparency in human relationships. The language oscillates between philosophical contemplation and absurd humor, questioning the nature of communication, identity, and perception.

By embracing contradiction, Wier highlights the failures of language to fully encapsulate experience. The poem ultimately resists resolution, reinforcing its title’s invocation of "opaque disunities." If there is meaning to be found, it exists in the very process of grappling with the poem’s unpredictable turns—just as in life, we move forward without fully understanding where we are going or why.

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