Three poems from FALSEWORK by Gary Geddes

PASSPORT

What happens after a war is a fantastic yet bewildering idea for people living through it. The story in this poem is told by a man immigrating to North America with the dream of the war ending realized. He describes warm settings; the American dream, what he wants for the good of his family, the family he wants to start in the new world. Geddes then shifts the tone after he builds compassion for the narration. The fantasy becomes reality when he is taken to the opposite of what he dreamed.

LADIES & ESCORTS

This poem creates a very enchanting voice of a 1950's construction worker. Geddes uses the diction of the character he has narrating authentically by bringing in the right words. "Bugger-all, gung-ho" as well as lingo that would be picked up from doing that kind of work. "Inserted a couple of pins to knock out as the choker tightened and the crane took up the weight." It tells a story well in a different style of poetry that is not as metaphorical or filled with a whack of triple meanings.

AN EDUCATED GUESS

I'm not entirely sure as to what the educated guess was. I like the story in the poem as it another view of the bridge before the tragedy and that gives a offset feeling to the reader; the dramatic irony is that we know something terrible is going to happen and the characters in this scene would never expect it to happen. Geddes does good work of creating a relationship between a reader and the protagonist. Him and Katie, his love interest, begin talking about the Sisteen Chapel in Rome, and I love the scene where he finally gets a kiss. She is a Fine Arts student and he's a steel worker; when she starts on about her appreciation for art and then he relates it to the only thing he knows, steel working. She finds his "venture" cute and gave him what he deserved