Poetry Thoughts: Patricia Smiths "34"
by Annabella Dlugi
This fall, my creative writing class read Patricia Smith’s “34,” a poem written in response to Hurricane Katrina. The poem is published in her 2008 book Blood Dazzler,which was also one of the books on Lawrence University’s First Year Studies reading list for this term.
The poem’s title is in reference to 34 nursing home residents who were drowned by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005. It has 34 stanzas, one for each person who died. In a performance of “34,” Smith says that she wrote it as an attempt to give the residents their voices back. As such, each stanza is written from the perspective of a different person.
Infusing her poem with themes of Christianity, family, water, memories and illness, Smith’s “34” is both sorrowful and beautiful. It humanizes each victim from the nursing home, making them seem vivid and alive. It also engages with their presumed older age, and the difficult setting of nursing homes in general. Smith does not shy away from the rawness of what happened; vulnerable people were left to drown and it is likely that at least some of them were aware of this.
Smith’s writing is electric and complicated. While it’s hard to choose just a few lines and even harder to take them out of context, it seems only right to include some of the lines themselves for a more immediate look at the poem. Below are some bits that stood out to me:
“What makes the dust of me smell like a dashed miracle, / the underside of everything? / What requires me to hear the bones?”; “Before the rain stung like silver, I had forgotten me”; “To cool fever, rub the sickness with wet earth. / For swelling, boil a just plucked chicken / and douse the hurt in the steam”; “I am wide aloud craving something shaped like you.”
Reading this poem, first for class and then again (and again) for myself, did a few things. It reminded me of the harsh reality of Hurricane Katrina, as well as the humanity that exists in nursing homes and other similar environments. It also proved to me, yet again, the power of using poetry to convey any part of the human experience.
Smith’s poem doesn’t just grapple with the sadness and pain of the nursing home residents; it also celebrates their lives and relationships, as well as their intense spirituality and final musings. While we don’t know what the people were actually thinking or what their lives were really like, “34” reminds us that they were still indeed people, all the way up until the end.
I hope that everyone reading this makes a point to read through the poem, even if it’s just a quick skim on your phone before work or holiday shopping. The context, content, and sheer poetic skill all make it worth reading. You can find it online at https://fpif.org/34. If you want to read more of Smith’s poems that relate to Hurricane Katrina, I recommend checking out her book Blood Dazzler.
Blood Dazzler
Patrica Smith
Publisher: Coffee House Press
90 pp. Pub.: September 1, 2008
Annabella Dlugi is a senior at Lawrence University studying English Literature. She loves all things art, especially theatre and music, and is fueled by obscene amounts of coffee, friends, and water walks.
