DDCPoetry

Poem Found Here:   "Dancer" by Patricia Spears Jones "Memory" is the main thing in this poem.  Note that the word is used three times in the poem -- once per each stanza.  And, even though this poem starts out focusing on the dancer, the poem feels as though it wants to test the idea of memory and meaning. Well, the play happens with this line, "Between fantasy and the memory of a man's carved / Torso". With these lines note how the idea of "fantasy" has been kept in the general -- some concept that is grounded in its allusiveness.   Rather the focus is on memory -- what does memory mean.  The literal of the memory in the first stanza is, "man's carved torso" but what it represents is," stroking and celebrations."  Something sexual, something intimate, something festive -- this all fro m a single black feather. This type of sentiment bleeds over to the next stanza, "Today the sun's brightness is like that love...