The Box Trick
The Box Trick
You think to yourself, “I don’t have to feel this way at Christmas.”
Cancel the party, sit at home and gorge on comté, gruyere and cambozola
with your son, he in a small sailor suit, you in something pink and slinky.
A thousand twinkle lights of indecision, the snowman in the snow globe
flies until he smashes against the wall. You read the fake snow
on your floor like tea leaves.
You think, “I will leave and take my son.”
Pack his yellow dump truck, Birds of America book,
and a Hotwheel case you’ll later use as a purse.
In your new yard finches bounce from branch to branch, and soon
you stop cutting the backs of your thighs like lunchmeat.
You think, “the horror show is over.”
No more getting in the box to see how many knives
can be plunged into you before you’re dead.
Float on the small petunias of your freedom.
The perfume of the yellow red roses with the black tips
proves you were right to pack your feathered skirt and leave.
by: Maria Garcia Teutsch
Published by If and Only If: A journal of body image and eating disorders
The poem uses simile in the poem, “The Box Trick” as it compares the girls leg as meat, “you stop cutting the backs of your thighs like lunchmeat” (line 11). Here Its revealed that a woman has some type of disorder who cuts herself either for pleasure or for a reminder shes doing something wrong.
“A thousand twinkle lights of indecision, the snowman in the snow globe flies until he smashes against the wall. You read the fake snow.” Imagery is used here, It sounds as if speaker threw the snow globe against the wall, leaving the reader to the imagination.
Also, “You think, “the horror show is over.”No more getting in the box to see how many knives can be plunged into you before you’re dead..” Again Imagery is used here creating a visual imagery of the knives plunging into a body.
“A thousand twinkle lights of indecision, the snowman in the snow globe flies until he smashes against the wall. You read the fake snow.”
I would say it was a metaphor and imagery used in these lines. The snow globe sounds as if it was smashed and it fell to the ground leaving you to picture it in your head. The line where it speaks of twinkle lights sounds like the description of Christmas lights and how much indecision the person is having.
Float on the small petunias of your freedom.
The perfume of the yellow red roses with the black tips
proves you were right to pack your feathered skirt and leave.
I saw this with elevated diction, strong, perhaps angry at the end in knowing the outcome. Image picturing the poem as it’s read to conceptualize a story in my mind, such as, “float on the small petunias of your freedom”, and “you were right to pack your feathered skirt and leave”. the person has left and passed on already, light as a feather, reincarnated as a bird as that image was used often. .Dramatic strong monologue to get the point across, I can see one person reading.
This poem uses metaphor and imagery in the poem, “The Box Trick” by comparing petunias to one’s freedom. “Float on the small petunias of your freedom”(line 19). This line is fairly deep and meaningful as it displays an image in the reader’s head that when petunias are floating, they are free, blowing from side to side in the wind like that of one’s freedom, which also allows one to be free to move around from place to place.
This poem uses a lot of image. With lines like “he in a small sailor suit, you in something pink and slinky” which makes you really imagine the people. Then these lines “No more getting in the box to see how many knives
can be plunged into you before you’re dead.” create such a vivid image of being in the knife box.
Poetic Term: Anaphora
Anaphora is used within the poem “The Box Trick.” The phrase “you think” is repeated three times within this poem, in lines 1, 12 and 21.
First off this poem uses imagery as its focal point throughout the poem. “A thousand twinkle lights of indecision, the snowman in the snow globe flies until he smashes against the wall. You read the fake snow on your floor like tea leaves.” (Lines 7-11) These lines relates to both imagery and metaphor. Imagery because you can imagine in your head a snow globe being thrown at the wall, smashing and everything inside falling onto the floor. It’s also something that can physically be done. It can also be a metaphor because the “twinkle lights” and “snow man in the snow globe” represent Christmas. Christmas time is when it snows and children make snowmen outside, it’s also the time to display Christmas snow globes with snowman inside. Winter is the time Christmas occurs.
“You think, “the horror show is over.” No more getting in the box to see how many knives can be plunged into you before you’re dead.” (Lines 21-24) These lines relate to a metaphor in a sense that you must live outside of the box at some point in your life to enjoy what life has to offer. The knives could represent the fears that a person has and the obstacles that one has to face.
This poem definitely utilizes similes in addition to imagery. Thus, the reader can visualize what the writer is speaking about through the poem. For example, when the writer mentions the following, “cancel the party, sit at home and gorge on comte….”, perhaps this phrase makes me imagine a person who might have been disappointed at Christmas but soon realizes he/she needs to enjoy the moment along with his/her son. Further, “float on the small petunias of your freedom”, thus this line make me think people need to enjoy every bit of freedom one possesses.
This poem uses alot of imagery, cause the use of words paint a picture, like twinkling lights and the smashing, the smashing against a wall, the smell of tea. “A thousand twinkle lights of indecision, the snowman in the snow globe flies until he smashes against the wall. You read the fake snow.” I picture and entire scene in my head.
The poet uses lots of image, metaphor, and some allusion. One line that I like was, “Float on the small petunias of your freedom”. This line uses image and the poet has the reader imagine petunias as a walkway or steps to wherever they choose to go. I also found an allusion when the poet refers to Birds of America.
“You think, “the horror show is over.”
No more getting in the box to see how many knives
can be plunged into you before you’re dead.”
These lines illustrate the use of a metaphor. The narrator feels trapped in her abusive relationship as if she is in a magicians box that she can’t escape but continues to be stabbed with knives.
The Box Trick
This poem made me think of a woman who feels that she is trapped in herself. Also, there are clues like, “You stop cutting the backs of your thighs like lunchmeat.” that bring to my mind a woman who feels she has to punish herself for some reason, or she is depressed and cutting herself make her feel momentarily good.
The use of simile’s in this poem works very well, in particular the line about the snow man “snowman in the snow globe
flies until he smashes against the wall. You read the fake snow
on your floor like tea leaves.”
For those who understand the meaning of reading tea leaves, it presents the idea of reading ones future from a traumatic event. Or, at least that is how I understand it in this poem.
Poetic Term: Allusion
The poem’s title and stanza five alludes to the trick magician’s do when they insert knives into a box. Except, in the poem’s case the trick isn’t magical but damaging to the character.
” You think, ‘the horror show is over.’
No more getting in the box to see how many knives
can be plunged into you before you’re dead. “(21-24)
Enjambment is effectively used in lines 18-21, which read, “In your new yard finches bounce from // branch to branch, and soon//
you stop cutting the backs of your thighs // like lunchmeat.”
The enjambment within the lines mimics the images presented, such as the spontaneity of the finches jumping from branch to branch as well as the sudden, unexpected rush of the emotions associated with the gruesome imagery of cutting one’s thighs like meat for consumption.
The poet in “The Box Trick” uses a couple of allusions in the poem. The first one I found was from the quote “the horror show is over”. This quote was from the book Snake Eye by William C. Dietz. The poet also references Birds of America. The poet also uses several end-stopped lines. For example, “You read the fake snow on your floor like tea leaves”, this gives a pause in the end of the line.
The poem uses simile in the poem, “The Box Trick” as it compares the girls leg as meat, “you stop cutting the backs of your thighs like lunchmeat” (line 11). Here Its revealed that a woman has some type of disorder who cuts herself either for pleasure or for a reminder shes doing something wrong.
“A thousand twinkle lights of indecision, the snowman in the snow globe flies until he smashes against the wall. You read the fake snow.” Imagery is used here, It sounds as if speaker threw the snow globe against the wall, leaving the reader to the imagination.
Also, “You think, “the horror show is over.”No more getting in the box to see how many knives can be plunged into you before you’re dead..” Again Imagery is used here creating a visual imagery of the knives plunging into a body.
“A thousand twinkle lights of indecision, the snowman in the snow globe flies until he smashes against the wall. You read the fake snow.”
I would say it was a metaphor and imagery used in these lines. The snow globe sounds as if it was smashed and it fell to the ground leaving you to picture it in your head. The line where it speaks of twinkle lights sounds like the description of Christmas lights and how much indecision the person is having.