pantoum: on beauty

On Beauty
by Nick Laird

No, we could not itemize the list
of sins they can't forgive us.
The beautiful don't lack the wound.
It is always beginning to snow.

Of sins they can't forgive us
speech is beautifully useless.
It is always beginning to snow.
The beautiful know this.

Speech is beautifully useless.
They are the damned.
The beautiful know this.
They stand around unnatural as statuary.

They are the damned.
and so their sadness is perfect,
delicate as an egg placed in your palm.
Hard, it is decorated with their face

and so their sadness is perfect.
The beautiful don't lack the wound.
Hard, it is decorated with their face.
No, we could not itemize the list.

The pantoum originated in Malaysia as a short folk poem. However, the modern pantoum is a poem of any length, composed of four-line stanzas in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza serve as the first and third lines of the next stanza. The last line of a pantoum is often the same as the first.

Enjambment (the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a stanza) occurs in this poem in various places to emphasize the points. In the third stanza, the phrase “and so…your palm” is a continuation to highlight the severity of the situation. Although “perfect”, their sadness is “delicate as an egg” and can be compromised by many means. I think Laird is trying to say that despite families struggling through the times, a simple mistake could cost them everything they have left.

When describing the depression, Laird describes their “sadness” as being “perfect”. However, his assertion is clearly an instance of figurative language (language that goes beyond literal meaning) since the two descriptions contradict each other.