"A Friday at the End of August"

The poem “A Friday at the End of August” by James Harms is an interesting piece. I don’t even think that it is one of my favorites. However, there are several phrases that have a great deal of literary quality. I love the sound of “trill and sizzle” in the last line of the fourth stanza. “Trilling” and “sizzling” are two very different sounds, and I think it’s very artistic/creative to put them together that way—somehow it works. In the same line, “a fleck of voice,” is a very unique way to describe a voice. Another expression that piqued my interest was “wet music.” I was very curious/confused as to the meaning of this phrase. Is it some mysterious use of poetic license? My guess is that it refers to the music of “wetbacks.” I arrived at this conclusion based on the actual use of that phrase in the poem and the consistent references to Spanish and the migrant workers. If I’m right about the meaning of “wet music,” I will be a little disappointed—I prefer to think that it is some clever poetic expression rather than a reference to the racial slur. Such an interesting phrase certainly deserves a better purpose than that. I’m also incredibly curious why the author chose the phrase “solamente una vez, no más.” What significance does “only one time, no more” have at this point in the poem? Or is it simply one of the few Spanish phrases that the author remembers? Following the Spanish phrase, “the bones of language hung as always with laughter,” is a wonderful phrase. I like the notion of language and laughter being closely tied. “Bones” is also a great way to describe language because bones are part of the foundations of humans, just as language is a foundation for communication in society. Even though it’s not necessarily one of my favorite poems, I can still appreciate the beauty of some of the phrases in this poem.

Sarah Corra