The Exhibit

[TranquillityBase]

For reasons unknown, Gardner aimed
his camera only at the bodies of the enemy,
Confederate artillery men piled
like bags of grain about a caisson
in front of a pockmarked whitewashed church,
scattered Louisianans along a fence row,
North Carolinians heaped together in a sunken road
or an anonymous young soldier "found on a hillside"
alone in the disordered pose of a final moment,
all awaiting shallow mass graves.

Gibson developed the plates
inside a stifling tent, his hands black
with silver nitrate, battling the flies
drawn to the collodion, amid the stench
of hundreds of corpses, human and animal.

Two weeks after the slaughter
The Dead of Antietam opened 
in Matthew Brady’s gallery on Broadway.
Crowds of people go up the stairs,
bend over stereographic viewers:
“Hushed reverent groups standing
around these weird copies of carnage
chained by the strange spell
that dwells in dead men’s eyes.”

Stereo views: 50 cents.  Cartes de visite: 25 cents.

It was the first and last exhibit of the killed.
Bloodier battles were to come,
but there was no Dead of Chancellorsville, 
of Gettysburg, of Chickamauga.
The appetite for the photographic reality of war
was sated by the Confederate dead left behind
along Hagerstown Pike in 1862.

In October 1862

less than a month after the slaughter

the Dead of Antietam opened on Broadway.

Confederate artillery men piled

like bags of grain about a caisson

in front of a pockmarked Dunker church,

scattered bodies along a fence row,

or heaped together in a worn rutted road

or even alone in the disordered pose

of a final moment, all awaiting shallow mass graves,

the nameless enemy forever unburied

prisoners of death locked inside a frame

in a lush gallery with velvet couches

and lit by chandeliers

where living bodies wander and gaze

seeing for the first time displayed

like a painter’s canvases

the aftermath of war’s artistry.

[Knot]

.
Hi TqB,
three problems, for me. The use (and repetition) of 'or' (when really I think you mean 'and'), 'painter's canvases', weren't these photographs? And the lack of a conclusion. Doubtless I'm dense, but what's the point here? Apparently
In an eloquent article in the October 20, 1862 New York Times, one writer contrasted these images to the tallies of the dead printed each day in the newspaper: “Each of these little names that the printer struck off so lightly last night, whistling over his work, and that we speak with a clip of the tongue, represents a bleeding, mangled corpse. … Mr. Brady has done something to bring home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war. If he has not brought bodies and laid them in our dooryards and along the streets, he has done something very like it.”
Be nice to have some sense of this, or whatever your own take on the Exhibit is in the piece.


less than a month after the slaughter
the Dead of Antietam opened on Broadway
and 10th, to rave reviews. October 1862 .................................. not sure why you've included the date, it's not a history report.

Confederate artillery men piled ........................ does it matter that they were Confederate? If so, why? (Apparently, again, the photographs themselves had no distinctions between sides.)
like bags sacks of grain about a caisson
in front of before a pockmarked Dunker church,

bodies scattered along a fence row,
heaped together in on a worn rutted road ............what distinguishes a rutted road from a worn, rutted road?
alone in the disordered pose of death.

all awaiting shallow mass graves,
prisoners of death locked inside a frame ............ do photographs have 'frames'?
in a lush gallery with velvet couches
the nameless enemy forever unburied ................ this, if I may presume, seems to be part of the point of the piece, why not end here?

and lit by chandeliers
where living bodies wander and gaze
seeing for the first time displayed
like a painter’s canvases
the aftermath of war’s artistry. ........... this doesn't feel like an ending.


Best, Knot.



.

[alonso ramoran]

TqB,

Comments below

In October 1862
less than a month after the slaughter
the Dead of Antietam opened on Broadway. Suggestion: cut these 3 lines then find a way to convey line 2 later in the poem. Then, retitle something like: "The Exhibit, October 1862"
Confederate artillery men piled
like bags of grain about a caisson
in front of a pockmarked Dunker church, When the N uses pockmarked, I'm think of a stucco type of material, something with inconsistent indentations, instead of holes caused by what's likely to be canon fire. Maybe another adjective? And I would use "the" instead of "a" for a determiner, because before I learned of the church that was being mentioned, I thought Dunker was a particular style of church-related architecture
scattered bodies along a fence row,
or heaped together in a worn rutted road either worn or rutted, don't think it should be both
or even alone in the disordered pose "disordered pose of a final moment" has something the two previous lines do not, imo; they felt like passing observations that the N felt obligated to talk about and if you intended for the reader to know of these photos already or research these photos, these lines would add nothing to that experience of viewing the photos. Again tho, really liked "disordered pose of a final moment"
of a final moment, all awaiting shallow mass graves,
the nameless enemy forever unburied
prisoners of death locked inside a frame prisoners of death or prisoners in death? hmm... so is the N suggesting that death keeps these soldiers locked inside a frame?
in a lush gallery with velvet couches
and lit by chandeliers
where living bodies wander and gaze
seeing for the first time displayed
like a painter’s canvases really like the comparison
the aftermath of war’s artistry. A fine and appropriate ending

The poem became a bit difficult to follow without at least one full stop sometime after the first 3 lines. Once I was able to get a hold of it though, it became a nice, thoughtful read. I'd love to see where you take this piece.

Alex

[Mark A Becker]

Hey Tim-
Some comments:

In October 1862  I don't think the date matters, as it's implied by Antietam
less than a month after the slaughter
the Dead of Antietam opened on Broadway. Maybe a mention of  Gardner, Brady's photographer
Confederate artillery men piled  Maybe Blue and Gray ?  Pleanty of non-artillery men as well, in the greatest single day loss of life on American soil- some 22,000.  Imagine it and include it in this poem
like bags of grain about a caisson
in front of a pockmarked Dunker church,  How to work in a bit of detail regarding Dunker Church ??
scattered bodies along a fence row, 
or heaped together in a worn rutted road  Nothing about The Sunken Road, aka The Bloody Lane  ?? Nothing about The Cornfield: so named because of head-high cornfields that concealed troop movements ??
or even alone in the disordered pose
of a final moment, all awaiting shallow mass graves,  good phrase, this: need more like it
the nameless enemy forever unburied
prisoners of death locked inside a frame  Don't think this adds anything, and conflates prisoners with the dead in a way that (for me) minimizes the collossal loss of life.  I think a period after "frame"
in a lush gallery with velvet couches  If you start a new line here, you begin to contrast the living from the dead.
and lit by chandeliers
where the living bodies wander and gaze careful with tense: "wandered and gazed"
seeing for the first time displayed
like a painter’s canvases  missed opportunity to say that it's probably the first time Americans saw pics of dead soldiers before they were even buried.  Imagine the shock of seeing that, and put it in this poem.  Gasps? curiosity? Use poetic license.
the aftermath of war’s artistry. "artistry" doesn't work for me, and seems disresepctful to the dead.  Also, this was a single battle, not a war.


I have been to Antietam, and upon viewing the hills and fields of that terrain, it occurred to me just how brutal the fighting must have been,  Even after 22,000+ dead and wounded in about 12 hours, it seems that the fighting just came to a "draw".  Think of it, on average, over 300 casualities per minute, 5 per second. The will to kill and die just must've been worn all the way down: an unspeakable tragedy.  Very hard to succintly convey in a poem, but since you picked the subject...

Contemplation of this exhibit offered you a great opportunity to draw the contrast between the living and the dead that I mentioned, yet you seemed to miss it at the end.  Remember that this is a poem not a history lecture.

[TranquillityBase]

Thanks Knot, Alex and Mark,

You've given me a lot to ponder.  I'm also interested in looking a little more into Mr. Brady's Exhibit.  Like if there were more of them.  In some ways, it is a history lesson, at least for me, and it's hard not to pass that on.  And I think it is only Confederate soldiers.  The Union dead had all been buried first, as you'd expect, before the photographer got there.  It was the first time a Union army held the battle ground at then end of a major engagement like this in the East where photogrpahers could reach.  So that's why I'm curious about additional exhibits. 

Anyway, you make many valuable points about the text.  Thank you for the extensive notes.  I'll make use of them.

P.S. to Mark, I just got Writing Poetry Poems in my mailbox.  Frankly I'm intimidated, but I'll give it a look.