Thinking Outside the Box

I think that the piece in its entirety has several patterns that weave through the three sections. I the main pattern is in the things that she is describing. Look at the three section titles; objects, food, rooms. These are all very basic objects, household items that you would encounter on a day-to-day basis. She is trying to give a new perspective on something that you have seen so frequently. You’re not supposed to look at these poems and see the average description of a chair or of a carafe it trying to get you mind to thing of it in a different way. 


“A LONG DRESS.

What is the current that makes machinery, that makes it crackle, what is the current that presents a long line and a necessary waist.
What is this current.

What is the wind, what is it.
 Where is the serene length, it is there and a dark place is not a dark place, only a white and red are black, only a yellow and green are blue, a pink is scarlet, a bow is every color. A line distinguishes it. A line just distinguishes it.”


 Look at this description of a long dress. She describes how it flows and how it moves, the current the flows through it. She also gives you an image of the dress describing the waistline. She talks about the colors of the dress and the separation between them. She almost brings this dress alive and gives it a presence.

 She also has a lot of patterns of repetitions with in the poems. She also tends to use the same word frequently in related poems.
“CHICKEN.


Pheasant and chicken, chicken is a peculiar third.


CHICKEN.


Alas a dirty word, alas a dirty third alas a dirty third, alas a dirty bird.


CHICKEN.


Alas a doubt in case of more go to say what it is cress. What is it. Mean. Potato. Loaves.


CHICKEN.


Stick stick call then, stick stick sticking, sticking with a chicken. Sticking in a extra succession, sticking in.”

These four poems are all related in a few similar ways. They are all in the same section, have the same titles and are located next to one another. But some of these poems have specific factors in each that relate them to one of the others.
- The first and the third share the word “third.”
- The second and the third share a similar word repetition with the word “alas.”
- The first and the third are similar in sentence structure that they have two different statements.
- The second and the last have their repetition of words in common.
They all seem to have a similar description of chickens like eating a chicken and how it sticks or how dirty it is. They all are trying to get you to think of a chicken in a different way, in anyway other than what you would normal associate with chicken. She wants you to think outside of the box and don’t think of the box in the normal parameters that a box would be included in.
Stein, Gertrude. Tender Buttons Objects--Food--Rooms. The Online Distributed Proofreading Team. Print.