Reading Corner: i’ll see you tomorrow

By Olivia Kendall

Cece Allentuck’s I’ll see you tomorrow is a collection of 30 poems exploring grief, change, and nature. The poems are written beautifully, ranging from short and punchy to long and deep. The poetry is bittersweet and picks at the heart of the reader, reminding them of what once was and the pains that come with change. It is clear from the start that these poems are more than just a creative writing hobby for Allentuck. It seems to go beyond this, reflecting a personal and vulnerable part of who she is.

The collection is relatable to the teenage girl experience; connecting themes of growing up and femininity. Being a young woman myself, I found the collection to be incredibly moving, with meaning found in every poem.

I will now discuss my three favourite poems from the collection.

Blank

I am going to begin with my favourite: Blank. A two-page poem, beautifully written, covering themes of self-doubt, insecurity, and the ordinary. Blank is exceptionally well-structured, which makes reading not only easy but a genuinely wonderful, impactful experience. The poem opens, “I am so unremarkable That I am stained with red Polka dots To remind me How dull I can really be,” immediately meant I connected with this work.

This bittersweet imagery is then followed immediately with the lines “[I am] The Picasso among Van [Goghs], The Thomas Cole among Monets”. I have a particular love for this first stanza as it so clearly communicates the inability to recognise self-worth, even when it is blaringly obvious. To be covered in red polka dots is the opposite of being dull, yet she can only see the dullness beneath. Picasso and Cole are wonderfully renowned artists with beautiful works; being different to Gogh and Monet has no implication on the quality of the former artists. Immediately, we see that there is a beauty unrecognisable to the person who holds it.

Later, Allentuck writes “I am once again Unremarkable”. This, for me, really hit home. I’m sure many St Andrews students can relate to the feeling of wanting to be the ‘best’ and to impress everyone they meet. Though it’s obvious, it nevertheless hurts to realise that you are not the ‘best’, and that there are a lot of people who are ‘better’ than you. That you are unremarkable. Though having a clear pessimistic tone, the poem also sees the beauty in the ordinary. “White canvas splattered with eraser marks”: there’s nothing remarkable to see, but there is something beautiful to appreciate.

The First Adventure

After reading this, I had to put the collection down to take a break. Here, we are looking at a very vulnerable and yet casual moment of grief: we are standing at a crossing, waiting for the green light, and a woman in front of us is smoking a cigarette. “I smell it before I see it”, beautiful and heart-wrenching. The familiar smell bringing back a lifetime of memories and the permanent importance of those you have lost.

Allentuck uses moving motifs here, such as: “sticky summers”, “sticky grief”, moving the reader through the complex ugliness of grief. The clear presentation of the loss of a parental figure only brings more dread. “When I get home, she will not be there waiting, So I stay here longer, understanding” – such a painful thought, triggered by the mundane every day. Those you lose don’t truly leave you, they appear everywhere and stay forever as a burning memory.

slide

This poem looks at what it is to be a woman, which I believe every woman has tried to define at some point. At first, I found this poem to be a little superficial and one-note in its discussion, focusing on a specific type of woman which is not relatable to a lot of female audiences. However, the last two lines changed my opinion entirely, and has made the poem into one of my favourites.

This short poem plays around a bit more with the structure, giving the poem an interesting shape, as if the subject is something we can’t really understand. The first three stanzas give common western viewpoints of womanhood, hence my statement of it appearing rather one-note, looking at “body rolls,” “boys pining,”“frolicking in a brand new dress.” We finish with the lines “And it’s body rolls at sixteen, When I am still wondering what being a woman Means to me.”

This line marks an important shift. Everything prior to these lines is completely negated and replaced instead with the meaninglessness of trying to define what it is to be a woman; it says “you are already a woman and yet you wonder what you should be doing to be a woman.” The impossibility of defining a woman is accepted and you’re encouraged to just be who you are.

Looking At The Meaning Behind the Collection

I had an interview with Allentuck to discuss my thoughts on the collection and understand her perspective. She told me the poems come from a “mess of different emotions around my teenage years,” having been written right before her senior year of high school during a growth and change period. The themes of change and grief aligned with her position at the time of writing, preparing to move onto the next major chapter of her life and continue growing up. Nature themes find their way into all of her poems, expressing her connection with the environment and especially trees. She expressed that being around nature makes her feel very grounded, and she wanted to express this in her work.

We talked specifically about The First Adventure, which is written about her babysitter Patti who unfortunately has passed. She told me that she struggles with having it in the collection and simultaneously it’s her favourite; “It’s a very personal and almost secret message,” she states, relating to the personal and real-lived portrayal of grief. The poem comes from Allentuck’s trip to Italy, which was her first trip abroad and first ‘real’ trip alone. The environment and culture of Italy, with the expressive smoking, kept Patti close and present, feeling her wherever she went. In her poem she wants to express this “back and forth of feeling pushed and pulled towards my future, but also stuck in the past a bit and wanting to remain in that in between,” wanting to linger with the uncomfortable situation as it keeps a lost loved one close, whilst also wanting to develop your own life.

I asked Allentuck about the structure of her poems. She told me “I don’t really like to follow forms,” preferring to write more freely. One particular style she avoids is rhyming, though she admits this can affect the form a little – claiming it sometimes gets “wonky” – she instead leans into repetition, punctuation, and capitalisation. Thus, she achieves an interesting and unique structure in her work.

In this collection, there are two parts, separated by a quotation. The first half (capitalised titles) and second half (lower-case titles) are sister poems, each poem is connected with a corresponding poem in the other half. Allentuck’s use of capitalisation was to show a distinction and change between the perspectives of the two halves: “when you’re younger, you feel like you know everything. The beginning is all about that grief and being afraid to grow. The second half is more about embracing that and being more excited to go into the future, but there’s less of a known.” The drop of the capitals in the second half is a change of certainty, a risk into the unknown.

This is similar to the cover of the book, which is entirely lower-case, indicating an uncertainty in saying “I’ll see you again tomorrow.” Further concerning the cover, Allentuck’s favourite colour is yellow for it’s happiness and good connotations, so the yellow cover resonates with her vulnerability. This pairs with the falling flowers to signify “letting go,” without being too pessimistic, “the flowers aren’t wilting.”Moreover, the inclusion of butterflies is to represent a lost loved one, like in Mexican culture where Monarch butterflies represent the dead returning during Día de los Muertos.

This collection is very personal to Allentuck. “I was very nervous to publish it … it’s like my insides are pouring out.” I asked whether there was any relief in publishing and Allentuck responds, “I think there will always be that kind of fear in me, of people reading my innermost thoughts and thinking this is silly, this is stupid.” Though, the great reception of the collection has helped settle her nerves a bit. Poetry allows you to be very vulnerable, and you can extract beauty from it, rather than just sitting in it.

I asked Allentuck what her least favourite poem from the collection was, and it was slide. It was one of the earliest she wrote, and rhymes too much for her liking. When I explained my interpretation to her, it was not at all what she was going for, “it definitely came more from a place of feeling lost,” yet she was very pleased with my understanding of the work, making her think differently herself on it. I asked whether, if she could, she would go back and change anything now; she told me “I like to think that they are what they are,” but there are a few things she would do differently had she written them now “I’d play around more with form, capitalisation, and punctuation … and probably spacing.”

Overall, this collection is a very special and important work for Allentuck. It is written beautifully and is undeniably to relatable to its audience, connecting with the reader in many aspects, reaching the depths of your heart. You can order i’ll see you tomorrow on Amazon, and find more of Allentuck’s work, including her novel work, at https://www.ceceallentuck.com/ as well as her Instagram @cecewritessometimes. Her novels consists of contemporary / realistic fiction, focusing on personal dynamics between people (especially women), with a focus on mental health as well. I highly anticipate her next release, and highly recommend this work to read.

(All photos are from Cece Allentuck)