I am supposed to give a literal explanation of this poem, but I am really confused by it. Your help will be much appreciated.

Question

Snow & Ice by Quincy Troupe
ice sheets sweep this slick mirrored dark place
space as keys that turn in tight, trigger
pain of situations
where we move ever so slowly
so gently into time — traced agony
the bright turning of imagination
so slowly
grooved through revolving doors, opening up to enter
mountains where spirits walk voices, ever so slowly
swept by cold, breathing fire
as these elliptical moments of illusion
link fragile loves sunk deep in snows as footprints
the voice prints cold black gesticulations
bone bare voices
chewed skeletal choices
in fangs of piranha gales
spewing out slivers of raucous laughter
glinting bright as hard polished silver nails

So is this poem about the speaker walking out in the snow and talking about the thing he is seeing and feeling, or maybe what he has experiance out in the snow?

"in fangs of piranha gales
spewing out slivers of raucous laughter
glinting bright as hard polished silver nails"

So in this part of the poem is it talking about the snow, and when it is really windy it hurts when it hits your skin?

gales=wind? silvers=snow?

You have it.

Thank you SraJMcGin and bobpursley for your help!!!!

Answer 1

Tell your teacher this is inexcusably bad poetry, and that she should be fired for making you read things like this. Read Hart Crane or Geoffrey Hill or Marianne Moore if you want "difficult" poetry that also means something that you can grasp.