Duplex of Realizations

A poem that challenged me the most to write

There is a poem I truly love called “Duplex” by Jericho Brown. One of its lines especially often circulates through my brain: “A poem is a gesture toward home.”

Like all great poems, this one rewards close reading. I’ve read it countless times now. I listened to two of my favorite poetry professors (that I’ve never met), Joanne Diaz and Abram Van Engen, discuss it. Diaz and Van Engen host a phenomenal podcast called Poetry For All. Listen to the episode in which they read and discuss this poem here.

You can read the poem:

I think this poem is masterfully done — a powerful commentary on memory, difficult upbringings, domestic abuse, identity. I love the weather metaphors. I am drawn to the rhythm and sound of it, which comes from the careful word choice, the precision of each line. I love how the lines build upon each other, and how each line surprises me.

Oh, to be able to write a poem this good.

“Duplex” is in a collection called The Tradition which won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 2020. What you may not realize upon the first read is that the duplex is actually a very complicated form. Here are the rules of the form, as invented and laid out by Brown himself:

“Write a ghazal that is also a sonnet that is also a blues poem of 14 lines, giving each line 9 to 11 syllables.

The first line is echoed in the last line.

The second line of the poem should change our impression of the first line in an unexpected way.

The second line is echoed and becomes the third line.

The fourth line of the poem should change our impression of the third line in an unexpected way.

This continues until the penultimate line becomes the first line of the couplet that leads to the final (and first) line.

For the variations of repeated lines, it is useful to think of the a a’ b scheme of the blues form.”

Oh my goodness! What a demanding set of boundaries! Often, the most impactful poems come from forms like this. And as a writing experiment to try out a challenging form, you realize that boundaries create freedom.

That said, I attempted to write a duplex in the point of view of one of my book characters, as though he wrote it. I plan for some future draft of this poem to be included in my novel.

Now, it’s your turn! Following Jericho Brown’s guidelines above, try writing your own duplex! And share it with me?

As always, thanks for reading,

XOXO Alessia