Gwen Stephan
Ann Hostetler
Intro to Literature
Poetry Book Analysis
Immortal Sofa: Maura Stanton’s Narrative Poetry in 2008
Maura Stanton has written six books of poetry. Her latest book, from 2008, is Immortal Sofa. Immortal Sofa is a book full of poems that examine Stanton’s viewpoint in the world, showing her imagination during everyday moments as well as highlighting the way her opinions have changed as she has grown older. The use of metaphor and narrative elements in Immortal Sofa set it apart from her other books, and also helped to convey the story of her life and how she has changed as a person over time.
Maura Stanton was born on September 9th, 1949 to Joseph and Wanda Stanton in Evanston, Illinois. She has a BA from the University of Minnesota (1969) and a MFA from the University of Iowa (1971). Her first book of poetry, Snow on Snow (Yale, 1975), won Stanton the Yale Younger Poets Prize, a very prestigious award for a new poet. This book began a career of creative writing that stretched from novels to short stories to poetry and that was acknowledged by many universities and other poets as the start of something excellent (“Maura Stanton” 1).
Molly Companion (1977) was Stanton’s next book, a novel. Molly Companion was followed by Cries of Swimmers (University of Utah, 1984), a poetry book, Tales of the Supernatural: Poems (1988), a collection of poems, Life among the Trolls (1994), poetry, Glacier Wine (Carnegie Mellon University, 2001), poetry, and finally Immortal Sofa (University of Illinois, 2008), her latest book of poetry. Since her first book, Stanton has also won many more prizes and awards for her poetry, including the Frances Steloff Fiction Prize (1975), the Lawrence Foundation Prize in Fiction (1982), and others (Maura Stanton Biography 1).
Before Stanton’s first book was published, she married Richard Cecil. As her writing career began to unfold, she worked at several universities, teaching creative writing. She taught at the State University of New York at Cortland (1972-1973), the University of Richmond (1973-1977), Humbolt State University (1977-1978), the University of Arizona (1978-1982), and finally the University of Indiana (1982-present) (Maura Stanton Biography 2).
From the beginning, Stanton’s work showed an interesting use of metaphor, narrative, and supernatural elements that set her apart from other poets. Her work focuses on the use of human imagination in everyday life. She has been compared to Sylvia Plath for her use of strange metaphors and themes, as well as her ability to take her own thoughts and feelings and lay them out plainly for the world to see. As she went, her poetry, perhaps reflecting her similar interest in prose, became more and more narrative, something that has become a key feature in her book Immortal Sofa. Over time, too, the element of metaphor and supernatural occurrences has remained, though in Immortal Sofa these are not as strong as they have been in the past. Stanton does not look at ghosts and spirits, but at the magic that can happen in everyday life. She looks at aging and death, but in a realistic way tinged with metaphors and perhaps a hint of magic to soften the blow. Immortal Sofa, more than any book before it, uses narrative in poetry and imagination in everyday life.
One example of a poem in Immortal Sofa tells a story is the poem “At the Vet’s.” “At the Vet’s” is a poem about three strangers overhearing a tragedy at a veterinary office and being unable to reach out to comfort each other or the man whose pet is dying. The poem describes the sick dog right away, then goes on to describe the other people and animals in the room. The poem does not describe the persona, focusing on her observations instead of her character. The strangers listen in as the vet explains to the man with the sick dog that his pet will not get better, and when the man leaves the office all the observers are stunned into silence. Stanton uses the metaphor of an opera to describe how the observers react and make the scene more dramatic, saying that the tragedy leaves “the audience – cats, terrier, people -/ sunk in their places, too stunned to applaud” (Stanton, 12).
“At the Vet’s” occurs near the beginning of Immortal Sofa and gives the reader an idea of what the rest of the poems are going to be like. It is blank verse, with no rhyming and lots of instances of enjambment. There is only one stanza with thirty lines, and all of the lines are of similar length, giving the poem a very rectangular appearance. While there are thirty lines in all, there are only seven sentences. These sentences are long and run-on, which makes them feel urgent and rushed, not properly formed but running along at full speed the same way one’s thoughts run along at any point during the day. This poem is not focused on perfection in words, but instead hones in on the feelings of the people, focusing on capturing the moment. The use of run-on sentences and enjambment helps to capture this. The block-like format of “At the Vet’s” contrasts with the slightly dizzying pace of the poem and the strange, out-of-body feelings of the people in the poem, perhaps representing how jarring it is when average life is interrupted by tragedy.
The fact that “At the Vet’s” is blank verse and uses no rhyme makes it feel even more like a short story rather than a poem, which is one of the features of Stanton’s poetry. The use of metaphor is strong in this poem, another common feature in Immortal Sofa. The people in the waiting room of the vet’s office, listening in on the man and the vet as they talk about his dog, are likened to the audience at an opera, while Stanton calls the vet a soprano and the man a baritone. When the man leaves, the people do not reach out to him, despite knowing his pain. They sit silently, an invisible fourth-wall built between them and the man, as if he really were just an actor and they audience members. The observer, while describing the people around herself, stays hidden, like an audience member in a darkened theater. Anonymous, unimportant compared to the actors. This metaphor is used to heighten the feeling of strangeness in the poem, to make the reader feel even more jarred when the tragedy is revealed in the midst of normal life. “At the Vet’s” is an excellent example of Stanton’s use of narrative and metaphor in Immortal Sofa.
Another of Stanton’s poems that is full of metaphors and narrative elements is “Ode to Pokeweed,” a long poem from the middle section of Immortal Sofa. “Ode to Pokeweed” is a free verse poem that describes a pokeweed plant’s history and the persona’s changing relationship with the plant. At the beginning of the poem, the persona tries to get rid of the plant, but cannot. When the persona does some research, she discovers that the plant has a very long history and several uses. After she educates herself, she feels fond of the pokeweed, and is distraught when the plant is destroyed during a storm. “Ode to Pokeweed” has only one stanza, like “At the Vet’s,” with 105 lines. Every other line of the poem is indented slightly, so that the even-numbered lines start farther in on the page than the odd-numbered lines. The lines are all of similar lengths and there are many instances of enjambment and apostrophe in this poem. Stanton uses many different kinds of punctuation, including commas, periods, dashes, and exclamation points.
The narrative element of “Ode to Pokeweed” comes in as the persona’s character changes as she educates herself and becomes more tolerant of the pokeweed plant. At first, the persona hates the plant and is fearful that it will poison the wildlife in her backyard. However, after taking the time to research the plant, and discovering how influential and ancient a plant it is, her attitude begins to change. She tells her friends about the plant and mourns deeply when the plant is destroyed by a thunderstorm. When the persona remembers that a new pokeweed plant will grow in its place, she rejoices, and looks forward to meeting the pokeweed plant again. The development of the persona’s character, similar to the development of a character in a novel, is a narrative element that Stanton uses to get the meaning of the poem across.
Here, too, lies the use of metaphor. In “Ode to Pokeweed,” Stanton describes a relationship between a human and a strange, unknown plant. In her previous books, she has often used nature as a metaphor for humans, and this poem is another example of this. “Ode to Pokeweed” is talking about human nature itself. When it comes to humans, nothing is ever as simple as it seems. Neither are things so simple with the pokeweed plant. Everyone has some sort of usefulness in the world, and everyone has a history with many twists and turns that are almost unimaginable. At first, when meeting someone new, one might feel afraid of him or her or even try to find a way to get away from him or her. However, in taking the time to figure this new person out, one might discover a deep friendship. Even the use of apostrophe helps to make the plant seem more human – Stanton’s attempt to show the reader that humans are not useless or boring, but beautiful and many-layered, like the pokeweed plant.
The last poem of Immortal Sofa, which shares the same name as the book, also uses a shift in attitude toward an object to present an idea hidden in metaphor. “Immortal Sofa” is blank verse with one stanza and no rhymes, like “At the Vet’s” and “Ode to Pokeweed.” It has eighty-six lines and many instances of enjambment. “Immortal Sofa” talks about a sofa given to the persona by her mother-in-law, taken hesitantly but eventually assimilated into the home. The sofa becomes, after a time, an important piece of furniture in the home and the persona even imagines that it will be in Heaven, a quiet place to rest after life is over.
Narrative is a large part of “Immortal Sofa.” The poem begins in the present, then goes to the past and works its way forward before guessing at what the future might hold, following a plot that many short stories and novels adhere to. In “Immortal Sofa,” as in “Ode to Pokeweed,” the reader can see a change in attitude toward an inanimate object. At first, the persona does not want to own a sofa, but has to take it because it is a gift. Over time, the persona comes to find that the sofa is a nice place to relax and read, and grows fond of it. Despite moving to several new cities, and despite the fact that the appearance of the sofa changes, it remains in each house she moves to, a place of comfort in new situations. The sofa is the last place of rest for her mother-in-law, who sleeps on the sofa until her death. Then the persona describes finding the sofa in Heaven, and using it as it is used currently – as a place to get away from the noise of everyday life and rest. The language of the poem is very similar to that of a prose piece, with no rhyming to set off this feeling. This poem is one of the most narrative poems in Immortal Sofa, using a distinct plot line, character development, and long sentences to reflect this.
In “Immortal Sofa,” Stanton uses the metaphor of this sofa to represent the main theme of her book. Stanton often looks at aging and mortality in Immortal Sofa, and this poem is no exception. The sofa could easily represent aging and the acceptance of her own mortality. At first, she describes how college-aged students get rid of their sofas at the end of each year – commenting how young adults do not seem to comprehend their mortality. Then she goes on to talk about her own feelings of discomfort about the sofa and how she refused to get one until it was given to her, again showing the fear and denial of death in young people. Over time, she becomes more comfortable with the idea, and eventually Stanton even links the sofa directly with death when she talks about her mother-in-law’s death and its connection with the sofa. Finally, Stanton finds peace in the idea of the sofa, or death, and even looks forward to the reprieve from the noise of life coming sometime in the future. In “Immortal Sofa,” Stanton uses narrative elements and metaphor to talk about her changing ideas about life and, eventually, death.
Immortal Sofa, Maura Stanton’s latest book of poetry, is about the way Stanton views the world, how the world affects her, and how she changes as she ages. Most of the poems face the idea of aging, new discovery, and death head-on, using metaphors to make the sometimes-bitter pill of mortality go down easier. Here, to a greater degree than in any of her previous books, Stanton uses narrative to tell the story of how she has changed as a person. She does so in a way that captures the real world and at the same time her own imagination, forming a book of stories in poetry form that is as complex as Stanton is, herself.
Bibliography
“Maura Stanton.” Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 6 Feb. 2011.
Maura Stanton Biography. Book Rags. Web. 6 Feb. 2011.
Stanton, Maura. Immortal Sofa. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 2008. Print.
Stanton’s Bibliography
Poetry
Glacier Wine (2001)
Life among the Trolls (1998)
Life among the Trolls (1998)
Tales of the Supernatural (1988)
Cries of Swimmers (1984)
Snow On Snow (1975)
Fiction
Cities in the Sea (2003)
Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling (2002)
The Country I Came From (1988)
Molly Companion (1977)
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