Notes on "Hangman" by Shahé Mankerian
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“Hangman” opens with an eerie sentiment and delivers on the promise of its conceit through each carefully crafted line. Mankerian expertly carries the opening metaphor through the entire piece, delicately setting down allusions to the human tragedy at the heart of the poem while remaining loyal to the project of taking a child’s word game seriously; as an act of violence comparable to murder. The juxtaposition here feels meticulously attended to and entirely cohesive; it is almost too easy to slip into the metaphor, to feel a sudden and visceral empathy for the stick-figure man slowly dying above Mankerian’s “snowy field soiled by em dash—em dash—em dash”. The metaphor reaches its end when a parallel is drawn not between the hangman stick figure and the real body of a dying man, but between that real body and the “half-finished word.” “Hangman” is an astonishing testament to the power and violence not only of language, but of the atomic base of it; the letters on a page, the punctuation. This poem left me brutally grief-stricken; I don’t think I’ll ever look at a game of Hangman the same way.
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Notes on "Hangman" by Shahé Mankerian
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I have read this poem many times now, and its contrast between innocence and extreme violence still takes my breath away. "Hangman" is effective and intelligent in its self-reference. It is at once a gripping narrative, an arresting political poem, and an ars poetica that makes the reader, for a moment, see life itself "as a half-finished word." I also appreciate the writer's attention to line length, subtle repetition, and musicality. As Jordan alludes to, the conceit of this poem could have easily become a gimmick — it could have become a little too absurd. Instead, it was given careful attention and perfected. "Hangman" is an unforgettable poem.
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