{"id":78,"date":"2015-03-31T21:57:58","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T04:57:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/?p=78"},"modified":"2015-04-12T12:10:47","modified_gmt":"2015-04-12T19:10:47","slug":"kicking-off-poetry-month-in-style-with-the-cinnamon-peeler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/2015\/03\/31\/kicking-off-poetry-month-in-style-with-the-cinnamon-peeler\/","title":{"rendered":"Kicking Off Poetry Month in Style–With “The Cinnamon Peeler”"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

By Ceilidh Hart<\/p>\n

My Poetry Month<\/a> choice: \u201cThe Cinnamon Peeler\u201d by Michael Ondaatje<\/a><\/p>\n

\"English<\/a><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know I liked Ondaatje (still haven\u2019t made it through Anil\u2019s Ghost<\/em><\/a>) until I encountered this poem, randomly, in a Canadian poetry anthology when I was doing my undergrad.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m skeptical of love poetry generally: quick to nose out clich\u00e9 or insincerity, but at the same time tired of and frustrated with irony. What struck me about \u201cThe Cinnamon Peeler\u201d wasn\u2019t the speaker\u2019s professions of desire, his compulsion to mark as his the body of his lover; but rather, his lover\u2019s desire to be marked by him, to be changed by him, to be changed by love.<\/p>\n

I still read those final two lines and think what a brave and honest sentiment she articulates there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Cinnamon Peeler<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

If I were a cinnamon peeler
\nI would ride your bed
\nAnd leave the yellow bark dust
\nOn your pillow.<\/p>\n

Your breasts and shoulders would reek
\nYou could never walk through markets
\nwithout the profession of my fingers
\nfloating over you. The blind would
\nstumble certain of whom they approached
\nthough you might bathe
\nunder rain gutters, monsoon.<\/p>\n

Here on the upper thigh
\nat this smooth pasture
\nneighbour to you hair
\nor the crease
\nthat cuts your back. This ankle.
\nYou will be known among strangers
\nas the cinnamon peeler’s wife.<\/p>\n

I could hardly glance at you
\nbefore marriage
\nnever touch you
\n–your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
\nI buried my hands
\nin saffron, disguised them
\nover smoking tar,
\nhelped the honey gatherers…<\/p>\n

When we swam once
\nI touched you in the water
\nand our bodies remained free,
\nyou could hold me and be blind of smell.
\nyou climbed the bank and said<\/p>\n

this is how you touch other women
\nthe grass cutter’s wife, the lime burner’s daughter.
\nAnd you searched your arms
\nfor the missing perfume<\/p>\n

and knew<\/p>\n

what good is it
\nto be the lime burner’s daughter
\nleft with no trace
\nas if not spoken to in the act of love
\nas if wounded without the pleasure of a scar.<\/p>\n

You touched
\nyour belly to my hands
\nin the dry air and said
\nI am the cinnamon
\nPeeler’s wife. Smell me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

~ Michael Ondaatje<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  By Ceilidh Hart My Poetry Month choice: \u201cThe Cinnamon Peeler\u201d by Michael Ondaatje I didn\u2019t know I liked Ondaatje (still haven\u2019t made it through Anil\u2019s Ghost) until I encountered this poem, randomly, in a Canadian poetry anthology when I was doing my undergrad. I\u2019m skeptical of love poetry generally: quick to nose out clich\u00e9 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ufv.ca\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}