Killing Floor BY AI

 Killing Floor

BY AI, I 爱

1. RUSSIA, 1927

visual colour.

On the day the sienna-skinned man

held my shoulders between his spade-shaped hands,       alliteration :s

easing me down into the azure water of Jordan,                 man, hands: assonance

I woke ninety-three million miles from myself,

Lev Davidovich Bronstein,

shoulder-deep in the Volga,

while the cheap dye of my black silk shirt darkened the water.

auditory noise

My head wet, water caught in my lashes.   

Am I blind?

I rub my eyes, then wade back to shore,   

undress and lie down,

until Stalin comes from his place beneath the birch tree.

He folds my clothes

and I button myself in my marmot coat,

and together we start the long walk back to Moscow.

He doesn’t ask, what did you see in the river?,

but I hear the hosts of a man drowning in water and holiness,   

the castrati voices I can’t recognize,

skating on knives, from trees, from air

on the thin ice of my last night in Russia.   

Leon Trotsky. Bread.

I want to scream, but silence holds my tongue   

with small spade-shaped hands

and only this comes, so quietly

Stalin has to press his ear to my mouth:   

I have only myself. Put me on the train.   

I won’t look back.

2. MEXICO, 1940

visual colour.

At noon today, I woke from a nightmare:   

my friend Jacques ran toward me with an ax,   

as I stepped from the train in Alma-Ata.

He was dressed in yellow satin pants and shirt.   

A marigold in winter.                                           false sense of serenity

When I held out my arms to embrace him,   

he raised the ax and struck me at the neck,   

my head fell to one side, hanging only by skin.   

A river of sighs poured from the cut.

3. MEXICO, August 20, 1940

The machine-gun bullets

hit my wife in the legs,

then zigzagged up her body.

I took the shears, cut open her gown   

and lay on top of her for hours.   

Blood soaked through my clothes   

and when I tried to rise, I couldn’t.

I wake then. Another nightmare.

I rise from my desk, walk to the bedroom   

and sit down at my wife’s mirrored vanity.   

I rouge my cheeks and lips,                        peace from nightmare, partaking of wife's vanity for calm

stare at my bone-white, speckled egg of a face:  

lined and empty.                                   The toll of exile and of continual threat has exhausted him.

I lean forward and see Jacques’s reflection.

I half-turn, smile, then turn back to the mirror.

He moves from the doorway,   

lifts the pickax

and strikes the top of my head.   

My brain splits.  

The pickax keeps going

and when it hits the tile floor,   

it flies from his hands,

a black dove on whose back I ride,   

two men, one cursing,

the other blessing all things:   

Lev Davidovich Bronstein,

I step from Jordan without you.

RELEASE FROM ANXIETY

“Killing Floor” is a free-verse (dramatic) monologue that dramatizes three moments in the life of Leon Trotsky. Born Lev Davidovich Bronstein, Trotsky—one of the most important figures of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917—was assassinated in Mexico in 1940 after being exiled from the Soviet Union. Using violent imagery to establish a context of spiritual and political crisis, Ai constructs a poetic autobiography of Trotsky that exposes the spiritual and psychological dimensions underlying historical fact. the poem touches on the human costs of revolutionary commitment. Emphasizing oppositions between the political and the personal, the public and the private, and dream and reality, this poem portrays the personal crises behind the historical facts of Trotsky’s life. 

In the poem’s second section, “Mexico, 1940,” the submerged violence of section 1 erupts into Trotsky’s dreams. Trotsky awakens from a nightmare vision; this awakening amplifies rather than dispels the reader’s sense of impending disaster. Ai heightens the dramatic tension of this section by breaking it into two halves. The first half relates the fact that Trotsky has had a dream of murder; the second half depicts in striking imagery the details of this dream. Between the two halves of the section, Ai wedges an expression of calm and serenity: “A marigold in winter.” She then closes the section by obliterating this sense of calm removal, returning to the nightmare: “my head fell to one side, hanging only by skin.”

The killing floor of the poem’s title resounds with the violence of the fatal blow and the exhilaration of Trotsky’s release from the myriad uncertainties of his existence. In the closing lines, the oppositions of identity and perspective that haunt Ai’s version of Trotsky are not so much resolved as recognized: “a black dove on whose back I ride,/ two men, one cursing,/ the other blessing all things.” In an ambiguous ending, the personal figure (Bronstein) separates from the political one (Trotsky). Ironically, this killing becomes a liberation from duality that frees Trotsky from the burden of nightmarish anxiety.
   The split between the two halves of himself resolves in a unifying act of purification (2nd KINGS /elisha) in the holy river of Trotsky’s Jewish ancestors: “Lev Davidovich Bronstein,/ I step from Jordan without you.” 

and later: Denotation and Connotation: Comparison of literal meaning of the words to their respective symbolisms (e.g. 'My brain splits.', which could literally mean that his brain was split open by the ax/ his public; political and private being is 'split' into two parts/ his consciousness is leaving his body.) 

Juxtapositions of violent and beautiful images—paired with the narration of dream and waking—create a surrealistic atmosphere in which Ai reimagines history. In this atmosphere, the sections of the poem describe the prelude, crisis, and culmination of Trotsky’s political and personal drama. By setting up oppositions within the poem (Jordan/Volga, Russia/Mexico, Bronstein/Trotsky, dream/waking, and marmot/dove), Ai renders history tangible and universal in its human implications.

“Killing Floor” is dominated by the power of Ai’s startling images of violence. Recognized and reviled by critics for the visceral power of its imagery, Ai’s poetry depicts suffering and survival in sometimes lurid, bloody detail. In very ordinary, very straightforward language, Ai constructs images of violence that capture the reader’s attention. Images such as “skating on knives,” a head hanging only by a sliver of skin, a bullet-riddled body, and a pickax splitting a brain reflect the unfortunately gruesome facts of life in a violent and cruel society. It would be a mistake, though, to read the violence of “Killing Floor” without also reading its images of beauty. In phrases such as “easing me down into the azure water of Jordan,” “water caught in my lashes,” and “A river of sighs poured from the cut,” Ai offers the reader a respite from the force of blood and violence. She juxtaposes these images of spirituality (baptism, Jordan, dove) and beauty with violent imagery in order to communicate the complex connection between violence and beauty. The alternating rhythm of violence and beauty, nightmare and wakefulness is crucial to the poem’s depiction of the divided and hounded life of Trotsky.

What is your reaction to the poem?

a) why so? Themes? violence, death, autobiographical dictation, politik

-diction: connotative: flowers, metaphors, symbolic 

symbol marigold in winter: fragility of life, flower of death, temporal serenity

Mexican marigold also known as cempasúchil, or Aztec marigold is a native flower to méxico and was first used by the Aztecs and is used in the Mexican holiday "Dia de los muertos" or day of the dead. It is believed that the spirits of our departed loved ones come to visit during the celebration and marigolds are used to help guide the spirits with their vibrant color.

-tone:  grim, visceral, direct, straightforward, gory

The use of kinesthetic imagery contributes to the sense of violence: 

• he raised the ax and struck me at the neck 

• lifts the pickax / and strikes the top of my head 

• My brain splits 

• fig lang :Spade-shaped hands (metaphor) x2  

• Ninety-three million miles from myself (hyperbole)  

• Castrati voices skating on knives, from trees, from air (personification)  

• Silence holds my tongue (personification) 

• A marigold in winter (visual imagery) 

• River of sighs (auditory imagery)  

• Speckled egg of a face (metaphor)

• 
  

-imagery: visceral visual (kin, aud)

 

Visual imagery= 'my head fell to one side, hanging only by skin', highlights the violence within the poem 

colours= yellow satin pants, marigold in winter 

 

Kinesthetic imagery= 'I rise from my desk, walk to the bedroom', displays movement sort of moves the poem bringing tension and heightening action. 

 

Auditory imagery= 'I hear the hosts of a man drowning in water', 'the castrati voices', preemptively thinking about his eventual death, know that it will be violent but wants to go peacefully  

    

 

 

 

-sound: virtually nothing, just imagery,

-form: free verse : drama monologue

symbolism; motif

Motif of Jordan river= finding release/peace in final moments, contrasts with violence 

Motif/Repetition of Stalin= helps establish timeline and setting 

Motif of nightmare = foreshadowing Trotsky's assassination/ inevitable death