Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Dara Wier’s "We've Made a Lot of Oxymoronic Promises" is a poem filled with surreal imagery, quiet melancholy, and a meditation on promises, memory, and transformation. Wier’s speaker navigates a landscape where perception and reality are blurred, where trees believe they are human and where an albino giraffe, unseen yet felt, provides reassurance. The poem reads like a reverie, a meditation on the nature of change, impermanence, and the human desire for stability in a shifting world.

The poem’s opening lines establish a tone of uncertainty: "We've made a lot of promises. I suspect we've kept many secrets." The balance between promises—explicit commitments—and secrets—concealed truths—suggests a tension between what is said and what is left unspoken. The speaker does not assert certainty but rather "suspects," implying that memory is fallible or that the weight of the past is difficult to fully grasp. This sets the stage for a poem that meditates on perception, doubt, and the quiet forces that shape our experiences.

The speaker then introduces the image of an "albino giraffe standing far away off in the / Snowy field’s corner," immediately placing the reader in an otherworldly setting. The giraffe, rare and ghostly, is not actually seen but sensed: "sensing its presence reassures me." This detail highlights the poem’s concern with unseen forces—things felt but not confirmed, ghosts of presence rather than tangible realities. The giraffe, white against the snow, could symbolize something ethereal or elusive, a guiding presence that is comforting despite its indistinctness.

The next lines shift to an almost fable-like assertion: "They had been called deluded trees, believing themselves to be human, / Standing around, as if waiting in line." This surreal image imbues nature with consciousness and identity. The trees, mistaken in their belief that they are human, mirror the ways in which people anthropomorphize nature or project emotions onto their surroundings. The idea of trees "waiting in line" suggests patience, endurance, or perhaps futility—standing in formation without necessarily having a destination.

The speaker, however, refuses to accept this notion: "Pardon me if I tell the trees otherwise." This moment of direct address asserts agency over interpretation—perhaps trees are not deluded, but simply their own entities, with their own movement and purpose. The speaker asserts a different truth for them: "It’s better for them to feel okay with their bouffant sallies and / Leopard collars." The absurdity of trees adorned with extravagant fashion details ("bouffant sallies and leopard collars") reinforces the poem’s dreamlike quality. The trees are not simply standing still; they are adorned, expressive, and perhaps theatrical in their existence.

Wier then offers an astonishing revelation: "You know trees move. Entire forests decamp for / Other regions on a regular basis. This has long been standard practice." Here, she suggests that trees are not as rooted as they seem—forests shift, relocate, travel. Whether this is meant literally or metaphorically, it challenges the assumption of permanence. The natural world, like human lives, is in flux, contradicting the idea that trees are passive or fixed. This movement could symbolize migration, adaptation, or the inevitable passage of time.

The poem’s tone then turns inward: "I'm a little heartsick in bluish twilight." The speaker, immersed in this world of shifting trees and unseen giraffes, experiences a personal ache, a sadness that is colored by the "bluish twilight." Twilight, as the liminal space between day and night, serves as a fitting metaphor for the uncertainty that pervades the poem. Yet, rather than dwelling in melancholy, the speaker asserts resilience: "However, soon I'll raise / A banner of hope which will hearten the darkest fireless evening." This act—raising a banner—suggests defiance, a determination to create light even in the absence of fire.

The poem then shifts to historical or mythic imagery: "The boys carved wooden ships, the girls shook out their petticoats." This evokes a sense of old-fashioned craftsmanship and domestic ritual, reinforcing themes of making and remaking, of movement and transformation. The carved ships suggest journeys—both real and metaphorical—while the shaking out of petticoats could symbolize preparation or renewal.

The final lines return to fire, both literal and figurative: "Not another loggia on fire, oh no, rev up the bucket brigade, you know / Everyone loves a good dousing. Everyone but the fire, and the fire / Had promised to love you forever." The mention of "another loggia on fire" implies repeated destruction, a cycle of burning and rebuilding. Fire here might represent passion, destruction, or inevitable change. The phrase "rev up the bucket brigade" conjures an old-fashioned community effort to extinguish a blaze, reinforcing a sense of collective action in response to crisis. The observation that "Everyone loves a good dousing. Everyone but the fire" is a striking paradox—fire, the very thing that consumes, resists its own extinguishing. The final line is the most haunting: "the fire / Had promised to love you forever." This personification of fire transforms it into something intimate and persistent—whether as love, desire, or destruction, fire refuses to let go.

Wier’s poem is a meditation on impermanence, memory, and the contradictions embedded in human experience. The title, "We've Made a Lot of Oxymoronic Promises," suggests that our commitments are often contradictory, that we exist in a space where certainty and uncertainty coexist. The poem plays with this tension—between perception and reality, stillness and movement, fire and water, presence and absence.

The recurring themes of movement—whether in the unseen shifting of trees or the carving of ships—suggest that nothing remains fixed. Even fire, which consumes, holds onto its presence like an unrelenting force of memory or desire. The imagery is both whimsical and deeply resonant, reinforcing the idea that reality is fluid, shaped by both perception and unseen forces.

Ultimately, the poem acknowledges the strange contradictions of life. There is melancholy in its twilight-hued reflections, but there is also defiance in its call to "raise a banner of hope." The final paradox—fire that refuses to let go—leaves the reader with a sense of unresolved tension, as if love, destruction, and memory are all bound together in an endless cycle. Wier’s poem does not offer resolution but instead lingers in the complexity of what it means to promise, to change, and to remember.

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