Assistant Editor Jess Jelsma Masterton: In Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction, Charles Baxter discusses how counterpoint narratives bring about implicit conflict. Two different perspectives are woven together in order to build tension through their juxtaposition. The characters may view a shared situation differently, or one speaker may withhold information from the other. The reader needs both perspectives to see the whole story and, hopefully, arrive at a greater truth. In Marjorie Maddox’s poem “Details,” there are many different counterpoint voices. There are what Baxter calls the classic inquisitor and concealer perspectives, along with the voice of the perpetrator. The mix of all three offers a fragmented and disorienting tale, one that haunts the reader by both what is brought to the surface and what remains hidden.
To hear Marjorie read “Details,” click here:
Details
The age? Sometime before
grown, before scream, before
bedtime story, before this is how
you were born. The person?
Does it matter? The hand?
The right one. The room? Dark
and darkening and sometimes
the spark of a face looking elsewhere
in time or place but not thinking
of who or for how long
or for ever after her life. And where
were the others? That information is
unavailable. And why did he put her hand
there? That information is unavailable.
It was dark and it hurt. This is
how your parents make babies. This is
how the night-light left on when everyone else
is gone reminds her to spot-clean the sheet,
tuck the moist fabric around her innocence.
And how often? That information is unavailable.
Shut your eyes, she thinks. Pretend to fall,
she remembers, faster and faster asleep.
Will it stop? she wonders. My,
how you’ve grown, are growing,
says the close stranger strangely.
She does not remember his voice,
but it is soft. Good,
she thinks it said once. Good–
night. She does not remember
her answer. She does not remember
if she answered at all.
Marjorie Maddox, an English professor at Lock Haven University, has published 11 poetry books—including Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation (Wipf & Stock, 2018); True, False, None of the Above (Poiema Poetry Series, 2016; Illumination Award medalist); Local News from Someplace Else (Wipf & Stock, 2013); What She Was Saying (stories; Fomite, 2017); children’s books; and an anthology (PSU Press, 2005). Find her online at www.marjoriemaddox.com.
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