Poetry

‘The bald man and his fat wife’ is how Waiata Dawn Davies’ poem ‘City Love’ starts off. So it may be confusing as to how this seemingly cruel line could relate to the title given. The beauty of this is that with the strategic placement of words, observational style, Davies’ is effective and successful in presenting her interpretations of love through the images lain before. While charming in its telling of love and the city, the poem unfolds into three ideas/couplings. The image of the first couple eating ice cream is followed by a flower scented mother watching her son play and an accountant with his girl at some traffic lights. This being with the intent of showing that love is not straightforward, nor just one type as well as the interaction love can have with a city.

The use of very few words suggests the author sees love as a simple thing, that it is better explained through image. For instance, the bald man and fat wife being ‘absorbed in ice cream and each other’ suggests an ageing couple which has been married for a while but still very much infatuated with each other. They don’t care about image, and lead an indulgent life. The mother watching her son ‘scattering pigeons while passers by smile’ represents youth and a mother’s pride. The passers by depict a different form of love by suggesting love for a child’s discovery of life. The accountant trading small kisses with her girl at the traffic lights gives the idea of opportunist, spontaneous love. The fact that the guy continuously kisses her until the lights change shows a starry-eyed, kind of passion.

What really works in taking the reader to the lighthearted feelings intended is the deliberate leaving out of certain details. The specific location of the relationships is missing. The reader doesn’t know where the first couple is walking. An effective way of understanding that beyond the ice cream and their married love, the couple is unaware. The way they are absorbed in each other is left up to interpretation. Is it through their eye’s gaze or through their hand holding? Is it non physical, an energy or chemistry they instill in one another?

The mother, with her son’s, location is not mentioned… leaving the reader to make assumptions of their own. Perhaps this was Davies’ intention, to leave it up to the reader’s own romantic notions. Take the accountant and his city fling at the city lights, the changing of the lights is not made clear. The colour they are waiting for is not stated. The couple could be kissing between change of the lights or just waiting to cross at the lights. Their purpose for waiting at those lights is really up to the reader’s imagination.

Davies’ has managed to capture the different elements of love and express them through the use of a prop, a city. The unique structuring, omitting of details, simple wording and observational style lead to an image of contentment, youth, admiration and excitement. With just three verses she has created a refreshing, smile-inducing read that leaves the reader more aware of the acts of love around them.