Lucia Perillo
“The Canticle from the Book of Bob" Here is a link to the poem: http://walkingwithghosts.blogspot.com/2007/06/canticle-from-book-of-bob-lucia-perillo.html In Lucia Perillo’s poem “The Canticle from the Book of Bob,” she writes about the funeral of a loved one. She takes an interesting spin on the normal idea of what a funeral is. Perillo puts emphasis on the fact that everything must be “hired” through an extensive use of anaphora. “We hired” shows up in nearly every line, stressing the importance of the fact that the speaker has to hire quite literally every person and item for the funeral. Perillo writes, “then we hired our grief” showing that even mourning the dead comes at a cost. If one wants a nice funeral and memorial for a loved one, it comes at a high price, when a higher price (this person’s death) has already been paid. This poem was striking and deep to me. Although the speaker (along with whoever else may be “we”) has to pay all these expenses just to bury a loved one, she does not seem bitter; instead she seems to accept the costs as a necessity. I particularly liked that Perillo includes, “money changed hands and the process was brief,” which makes the funeral sound more like a business deal than anything else. With this, Perillo effectively takes the emotion out of death and treats death as just a mundane occurrence. “And we hired some tears because our own eyes were tired.” The speaker does not necessarily pay others to cry; however, it must seem like this because enough has already been paid and everyone at the funeral must naturally be crying. The fact that the speaker's “eyes were tired” shows the emotional toll the death and funeral has put on her. Although sad and still mourning, she is unable to cry, thus leading to the “hiring” of others to do it for her. The title of the poem leaves room for speculation. Is “Bob” the person who has died? Bob is never mentioned in the actual poem and neither is the name of the deceased. Perhaps the author left it this way on purpose so as to not take away from the emotion of the poem. Meanwhile, the “canticle” is obviously referring to the song that is sung by the “woman to sing in our stead.” But on second thought, the whole poem might have been written as a canticle itself. It certainly does have a sort of chanting quality to it. -Steven
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