Allusion

"Loving in Truth"
By Chris Wallace-Crabbe

(poem from poetry foundation.org)

Someone will push the house over one day,

Some spacedozer give it a shove,

But the cobbles we laid down here in the yard,

These are a labour of love.

All winter we set these cobbles in place,

Or was it the summer as well?

Sorting through lumpy bluestone pitchers

For ones that looked suitable.

The old house decayed – along with us –

Will a strange new resident

Admire the patio made in joy

Wondering what we meant?

Things fall apart, the poet wrote,

Certainties crumble and move

But the cobbles oddly plotted together,

These are our labour of love.

Biographical Information

            Chris Wallace-Crabbe is the author of more than a dozen collections of poetry, including By and Large (2001); Selected Poems 1956–1994 (1995), which won the Dinny O’Hearn Poetry Prize; The Amorous Cannibal (1985), which won the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry; and Blood Is the Water (1969), which won the Farmer’s Poetry Prize.  Born in Melbourne, Australian poet Chris Wallace-Crabbe is the son of a pianist and a journalist. He earned a BA at Melbourne University and attended Yale University. Wallace-Crabbe’s wry yet expansive poems mix high and low diction to sometimes startling effect. In the Times Literary Supplement, critic Eric Ormsby referred to Wallace-Crabbe as “a genial smuggler of surprises,” noting, “His uncommon affability, even when treating the gravest subjects, leaves the reader unprepared for his sudden luxuriance of phrase. 

          In 2011, Wallace-Crabbe was awarded the Order of Australia. Over the course of his career, he has received the St. Michael’s Medal, the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal, the Human Rights Award for Poetry, and the Christopher Brennan Award for Literature. Founding director of the Australian Center at Melbourne University, he has taught at Harvard and Yale Universities.  

(biographical information from poetry foundation.org)

Explanation of Technique

            Allusion poems can be hard to depict the meaning. These types of poems are indirect and have a brief reference to things. The things being referenced can be a person, place, idea of historical, cultural, literacy, or political significance. It is also described as a passing comment that the author puts into the poem to see if the reader has enough knowledge to spot the allusion and see the importance of it. The allusion I spotted in the poem is the word spacedozer. In the poem it refers to a person, but a spacedozer is actually a LEGO toy that is similar to a bulldozer but used in space. That is why this poem is an allusion poem.

Interpretation of Poem

           First of all, this poem tells a story about a couple living in a house. In their yard, the couple has cobbles, that they have placed down together. These cobbles are described as the couple's labour of love and they hold deep sentimental value to the couple. This poem could be telling the reader to appreciate things in a relationship. Like the couple in the poem, appreciated having the cobbles build up their relationship and love.

(photo from tristatematerials.com)

Explanation of Visual

              I chose a picture of cobbles, as a symbol of the love the couple expressed in the poem, "Loving in Truth". The couple placed the cobbles in their yard together and that served as a bonding moment for them to make their relationship even more stronger. The cobbles were the labour of their love and that meant a lot the couple.