Inventory post, week 5

“Betrayal” by Adam Zagajewski, Contemporary World Poetry, p. 155

• ·      The work moves from the perspective of “I” in the first line to “our” and “we” to the end.
• ·      “Betrayal” and “fidelity” end lines 2 and 3, emphasizing their “equal”ness.
• ·      The order of “a woman, friends, an idea” in line 4 is altered in lines 7-9.
• ·      The last two sentences begin at the end of their lines and are conditional, “But,” “If.”
• ·      The word “other” is used repeatedly in the second half of the piece, four times. The first two instances reference “limited”ness, while the second two emphasize a “quite different otherness.”
• ·      “Woman” and “ideas” are contrasted by “other,” while “friends” is contrasted by “the enemies of our long-standing friends.”
• ·       “Different otherness” is defined by verbs: “settle,” “touch,” “lose,” “meet.”
• ·      The final verb “meet” ends the second to last line and concerns the only spiritual reference: “a God other than our own.”
• ·      “God” is capitalized and in the last line of the text.
• ·      “She” is the only gendered pronoun in the piece.