"In a U-Haul North of Damascus"

When we first read this poem by David Bottoms, I was moved. Aside from the fact that it works really well as poetry, I connect strongly to religious imagery. Bottoms uses this imagery (and language) well.

The lines,

"And why should I care
so long after everything has fallen
to pain that the woman sleeping there should be sleeping alone?"

do an excellent job of crafting history in the relationship. He doesn't have to tell us that they were married for a while for this sense of time to be conveyed. Just through this one image, he sets up the assumption that the speaker was married long enough that the fall was hard and the empty bed is a strange concept.

Throughout the poem, Bottoms uses physical imagery effectively. The first section illustrates how lost someone can feel after a relationship falls apart, when the tree limbs are said to be slapping against the trailers, like someone lost in a thick forest. A violent argument is portrayed vividly in the second section of the poem, with a description of blood on the floor after being cut by a thrown dish.

The third section calls to mind the smell of pine and fresh air, and connects them to the hopefulness that such a refreshing scent can inspire. It doesn't overdo the hopefulness, however, and leaves the poem with a question: Can someone regain hope after every dream has been shattered?

Bottoms' poem spoke clearly and effectively to me, and that is one of the reasons I think it works so well as poetry.

-Audrey Guire