How Noble My Bloody Hands: “Once” by Jeni De La O
“Once” by Jeni De La O is a poem about memories. Or imagined memories. Or re-imagined traumas that the narrator understands now as links in the great chain of her life.
We can guess at the traumas the narrator has endured based on the details she gives us. She tells us about hair being braided so tightly that it injures. She tells us about a girl, in the broad daylight, being pulled under a trailer by something unseen. She tells us of scrambling away from a disembodied voice that calls to her from a van. Altogether, she gives us nine moments in her life that she remembers. But what do they all mean as a whole?
This poem reveals a person who cannot trust that anything is the way it seems. It might LOOK like just a braid, but the braid is actually so tight that it pulls the scalp away from the body. It might LOOK like an unknown van barreling towards you, ready to murder, but it’s actually your mother and she’s laughing at you. Can the narrator trust the things that she sees and experiences? Is she right to race up the stairs in her own home for fear something will get her?
Is “Once” a poem about remembered moments? Or did these things really happen after all? The narrator describes nine scenes to us, each beginning with the word “once.” But the word “once” should bring us pause. What else starts with “once?” “Once upon a time.” Are some of these stories she’s made up to explain who she’s become? To reconfigure the past events of her life in some sort of meaningful way? Is this ultimately a poem about her mother?
Read the poem at the link below. Then, come back here and let me know what you think. There’s so much more to talk about when it comes to this poem, and I want to do that with you.
