Leslie Vryenhoek\'s \"Longing\" Leslie Vyenhoek\'s Short Poem

¶ … Leslie Vryenhoek's "Longing"

Leslie Vyenhoek's short poem "Longing" expresses the manner in which the breakdown of family can divide both the physical and emotional. The poet's use of figurative language, strong imagery, and word choice illustrates the "backlit yearning" (Vryenhoek 8) which resides deep within a girl who is "straddling the continent" (1) as she is shuttled back and forth between parents who live on opposite ends of the country. The omniscient narrator of the poem maintains a somewhat dispassionate tone in describing the girl which serves to further underscore the emotional alienation that is a byproduct of modern family dynamics.

The first stanza of "Longing" speaks to the genetic echo which links generations together, as demonstrated by the girl who has "her mother's legs -- long and capricious" (2-3). Vyenhoek's use of the word "capricious" (3) suggests the girl's overall lack of control within her own life. Although her legs are her own, they are also her mother's, and although she is capable of propelling herself forward on those same legs, she is still at the mercy of her parents' arbitrary decisions. The narrator, although unidentified, speaks of this girl with the exasperated, yet benevolent tone of an adult who recognizes how the habits of the young replace those of the old. Vryenhoek writes that the girl "carries her address/in the palm of her hand like they all do/these days" (3-5), alluding to the new technologies which enable children and teenagers to remain in "constant contact" (5) with parents who live on opposite ends of the country.

Vryenhoek uses alliteration and repetition to emphasize the changed nature of the modern family, where stability has been replaced by a "flitting from coast to coast" (6) as the girl seeks to maintain a relationship with each parent. The result of this, however, is that she belongs in neither world; indeed, her only stable address is that which she "carries in the palm of her hand" (4). The double meaning of this line, in which the poet may be referring to a cellphone or other modern device while also suggesting the physical details of the girl's palm that genetically link her to her parents, alludes to a transitory existence which suggests that the girl's only true home is within her self.

The attitude of the girl herself is ambiguous and conflicted. Although she straddles "the continent" (2), a physical pose which suggests power and dominance, Vryenhoek uses rhyme to emphasize that travel "feeds her need" (6) to remain in constant motion. There is no joy implied, however, in Vryenhoek's description of that insidious need as one which seeks a "unremitting lack of gratification" (7). Instead, it suggests that although circumstances dictate that the girl remain in perpetual motion, it is not a choice that she would have made for herself. Rather, she is at the mercy of the adult world, unable to alter her state of disassociation and homeless no more than she can the "capricious" (3) legs she inherited from her mother.