Link to “Watershed” by Tracy K. Smith.
At first glance of Tracy K. Smith’s poem, “Watershed,” I was already confused. Before even reading the poem, if you look at it, the words go every which way on the page. Some ideas and sentences are broken into various pieces and scattered across the page with one line starting right on the margin and the next starting 3 inches away. I found myself distracted just by the formatting of the poem, and I hadn’t even begun reading. Once I began reading, I found the lack of certain words–such as “the,” “a,” and pronouns–in the poem made the sentences feel choppy and incomplete. Pairing the choppy sentences, lack of punctuation, and obscure formatting left me confused on the flow of the poem, ultimately distracting me from what the poem was trying to convey.
In order to understand the formatting of the poem and how it coexisted with the choppy sentences, I had to slow down my reading and look closely at the words that were written, rather than the words that were missing. Looking at an excerpt from the beginning of the poem as an example,
“ property would have been even larger
had J not sold 66 acres to DuPont for
waste from its Washington Works factory
where J was employed
did not want to sell
but needed money poor health
mysterious ailments”
When looking at this excerpt, the obscure formatting is clearly noticeable. When reading this excerpt, the lack of words makes the choppy sentence structure apparent. It seems like “did not want to sell” ties back to J having sold part of the property but the lack of context surrounding the statement makes it feel unattached to the previous statements. The formatting of this portion of the poem made me think of a string of consciousness of someone who was poorly educated. This belief is backed up by the fact that the narrator never refers to themself throughout the writing, which is true when thinking, because you typically never refer to yourself when you’re thinking of a situation, you instead just think of the situation and the events that surrounded you. The lack of certain articles and pronouns also made it apparent to me that I was in someone’s conscious thoughts, as thoughts aren’t typically well articulated as they’re just quick thoughts. What gave me the hint that the narrator is poorly educated was also partially the choppy sentences, but more so the setting in which the narrator is explaining. Previous to this excerpt of the poem, the author states “200 cows more than 600 hilly acres” which gives the feeling that we’re on a dairy farm or some form of farm. So, with the poorly articulated sentences and the setting, it is apparent that the narrator is from somewhere in a rural farming area, and people typically in those areas don’t have as high of an education as those in a more urban area. Using these findings, I was able to begin looking at the text through this lens, which helped me to understand what the text was saying.
To go along with the confusion of the obscure formatting, at certain points in the poem, the formatting completely changes and the sentences are written in italics and complete sentences. This portion of the poem doesn’t follow typical poetic formatting, but rather the formatting of a narrative paragraph you’d find in a novel. So, upon my first read-through, this section was unexpected and created a contrast within the poem and its writing style. After fully reading the poem and then re-reading the parts in italics, I came to realize it was a different narrator and that if you read only the parts in italics, it creates a new story within the poem. So, while the parts not written in italics talk about the dangers of perfluorooctanoic acid and how it impacts the environment, the parts in italics create a story of someone who is presumably sick/dying due to PFOA poisoning. Once I read only the parts in italics and realized a different narrative was being portrayed, I saw how the contrast between the two aspects of the poem came together to give the poem a full overarching look at climate change. The non-italicized part of the poem emphasizes the impact of toxic chemicals being introduced to the environment by creating a negative connotation through the use of words like, “chemical waste,” “sludge,” “toxic,” and even “toxic sludge.” The italicized part contrasts this negative look at toxic waste by having a softer tone that made me feel more connected to this new narrator. This narrator emphasizes love, life, and warmth and uses this emphasis to show Earth’s deterioration. By seeing this contrast, I was able to look at the two parts of the poem and see how they coexist and speak on the same topic but do so in very different manners, ultimately making the point of the piece quite hard to miss.
All in all, after taking the time to slow down, reread the poem, and consider how each aspect of the poem that confused me correlates to one another, I was able to create a clearer interpretation of the poem. Thus teaching me how every part of a poem truly is important and deserves a second read even if I find it difficult to understand.