Performance
Performance - meaning Summary
Triumph with Private Ache
The speaker recounts a dazzling public performance, using explosive, kinetic imagery to convey physical virtuosity and spectacle. Metaphors of rockets, fireworks and crowns stress showy triumph and technical brilliance. Despite this outward glory and a final exuberant gesture, the poem ends with a quiet, paradoxical note: after triumph the speaker is "inconsolable," suggesting an emotional aftermath of emptiness or longing that undercuts visible success.
Read Complete AnalysesI starred that night, I shone: I was footwork and firework in one, a rocket that wriggled up and shot darkness with a parasol of brilliants and a peewee descant on a flung bit; I was blusters of glitter-bombs expanding to mantle and aurora from a crown, I was fouéttes, falls of blazing paint, para-flares spot-welding cloudy heaven, loose gold off fierce toeholds of white, a finale red-tongued as a haka leap: that too was a butt of all right! As usual after any triumph, I was of course, inconsolable.
Pretty mid TBH NGL FRFR ONG DEADASS NO CAP NOT CLICKBAIT PUT THE FRIES IN THE BAG BRO FELL OFF