Monday, October 15, 2012

Poetry Spotlight

"The Mermaid Loses Her Voice" by Jeannine Hall Gailey

I haven't done one of these in a while; it's long overdue.

Today I want to share "The Mermaid Loses Her Voice," written in the point-of-view of Anderson's little mermaid.  It's featured on Rose Red Review.  With the first line, this poem lulls and gains listener interest in a down-to-earth, conversational tone.

I don’t know what they told you, but it wasn’t for love.
I was the disobedient daughter, the one who couldn’t                 bear
a life on the waves.  I wanted to be something new.

I am reminded of "The Mermaid Sets the Story Straight" by Debra CashThe titles of both poems give the mermaid an action and prepare the reader to hear the narrative in the mermaid's voice.  But they are quite different in what they accomplish.  

Jeff Simpson, The Little Mermaidsource

While Ms. Cash's poem is, well--aggressive, subversive  berating?--in accord with the connotations a phrase like "setting the story straight" conjures, Ms. Gailey's title is more passive.  Her mermaid loses something.  

We know the story goes that she loses her capability for speech, but Mrs. Gailey's mermaid is given a voice in this poem, regardless of title.  What, then, has the little mermaid lost?  I think it is something less obvious than vocal cords.

"The prince was merely an interlude," she says.  "I was lonely."

Men loved me for my body, so unavailable,                                     unassailable….
they tried to catch me in nets.  Now I’m one more
long-haired lass in low-cut jeans in a tavern, listening to           them
boast about conquering the sea.  But I am the sea.

I sense a heroine who once had been Ms. Cash's, now reflecting in the wisdom of experience.  She left the sea, but she was the sea; she "was tired of mystery," but the sea was her voice.  How can she escape?  And why did she ever want to?

The word "inevitable" in the last line is final as a bell-toll.  Do read the poem in its entirety.

If it is possible to say one poem is better than another (and I'm not so sure it is), I wouldn't be fit to say it.  But I think it should be obvious which one of these I prefer.



  1. I think I prefer the second poem. The last three lines really stick with me. The concept they bring up is one I grappled with on Columbus Day. I thought about how Columbus is credited with "discovering" a place that had already been found; a place that was someone else's home.

    Also, I'm not sure about the tone of the rest of the poem. The little mermaid was admired for her beauty, but I don't think she deserved to be compared to a prostitute. If anything, she was more of a stalker.

    Thanks for posting. - Alex

    1. The image is beautiful, too.

    2. LOL! She _was_ a stalker!

      I didn't get that she was a prostitute, just your typical American gal in a seaside bar. But maybe you've read the poem better than me. It is entirely likely.

      I think the big differences of the poems (and I don't like to say outright because saying something sort of makes it not true for poetry, you know?) are that in "Loses Her Voice," the sea is a powerful, if not an outright good, thing and in "Sets the Record Straight," it is a negative, something that handicaps.

      My personal feeling is to react to the sea like the former, as a place of mystery, the sacred. I am comforted by the mermaids final acceptance of her identity, rather than the mermaid's rejection of it in "Sets the Record Straight." I find it more moving and liberating than trying to become something you're not.

      They're both hella good poems, though. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts!

  2. I LOVED this poem!

    "But I am the sea."..!!

    The use of the sea in this poem is so powerful.


Don't be shy. Leave a comment!