{"id":3187,"date":"2020-06-03T15:58:30","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T14:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/?p=3187"},"modified":"2020-06-03T16:07:53","modified_gmt":"2020-06-03T15:07:53","slug":"and-the-house-in-nocturne-by-carolyn-forche-an-essay-by-agnieszka-studzinska","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/?p=3187","title":{"rendered":"
‘And the house? in Nocturne by Carolyn Forch\u00e9’<\/h6> – An essay by Agnieszka Studzińska"},"content":{"rendered":"

Agnieszka Studzinska has an MA in Creative Writing from the UEA. Her first debut collection,\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Snow Calling<\/strong>\u00a0was shortlisted for the London New Poetry Award 2010. Her second collection,\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>What Things<\/strong>\u00a0Are<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>is published by Eyewear Publishing (2014). She has poems published in <\/strong><\/em>The Long Poem Magazine<\/strong>, <\/strong><\/em>The Manhattan Review<\/strong>, <\/strong><\/em>Wildcourt<\/strong>, <\/strong><\/em>Agenda<\/strong>, <\/strong><\/em>Myslexia<\/strong>, as well as having poems featured in several other anthologies. Her poem \u2018Winged Narratives\u2019 was nominated for the 2019 Forward Prize for best single poem.\u00a0\u00a0She is currently working towards her PhD at Royal Holloway University of London exploring how the image of the house is appropriated in contemporary American poetry. She teaches creative writing to adults, undergraduates and for The Poetry School in London.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

This essay is part of the 2020\u00a0Inside Writing<\/a>\u00a0showcase.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Inside writing is the house. Inside the house there is writing. Inside our houses right now, strange worlds reside, inhabit, there are hauntings \u2013 as are in Forch\u00e9\u2019s poem \u2018Nocturne\u2019 in Blue Hour<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Forch\u00e9 elegy works within the spaces of the \u201cno longer\u2026and the not yet\u201d (Derrida 2006: 221), introducing us to spectral moments, pushing at a future whilst allowing a past to present itself. Forch\u00e9\u2019s ghosts in \u2018Nocturne\u2019 augment omission, silence, a half told narrative.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe house saw everything as does every house. Hollows walls, staircase\/ sorrowing ink. It was the last time\u201d (Forch\u00e9: 2003: 22).<\/p>\n

Inside our houses during lockdown, we hear our voices in the body of a room, in the shiver of a wall. We hear a new world outside, entering the particles of shadows that confinement gifts. We ask ourselves, what happened?<\/p>\n

Forche\u2019s \u2018Nocturne\u2019 begins with this very question, what happened?<\/p>\n

At night we lie in our beds plagued or pleasured, recalling the day like a ghost with a clock in its palms. At night we think, what next? At night, we listen to our futures changing, catch what remains.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people of this world are moving into the next, and with them their hours and the ink of their ability to make thought.\u201d (Forche: 2003:19)<\/p>\n

Each couplet in \u2018Nocturne\u2019 fleets between past and present, between what is said and what is not said, what we hear ourselves as readers and what we are told. The house appears and reappears in Forch\u00e9\u2019s narrative, each time in a different context:<\/p>\n

\u201cHis mother on the porch, dressing like a man even then, and the house in the photograph behind her in flames, mother and house.\u201d (Forch\u00e9: 2003: 20)<\/p>\n

Inside us there are many houses. We live inside their imaginings. Inside us their windows open and close. We are bound in their apparitions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Agnieszka Studzinska has an MA in Creative Writing from the UEA. Her first debut collection,\u00a0Snow Calling\u00a0was shortlisted for the London New Poetry Award 2010. Her…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[690,363,664],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3187"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3187"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3198,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3187\/revisions\/3198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}