Get to the Bottom of It: Fun with Footnotes
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1️⃣ Ocean Vuong
2️⃣ Jenn Givhan
3️⃣ Jeanann Verlee
4️⃣ Stephanie Gray
5️⃣ Jenny Boully
6️⃣ Layli Long Soldier
Despite their capacity to inspire fear in student research paper writers everywhere, footnotes offer an interesting way to experiment in poetry. In the simplest terms, a footnote is just a note that appears at the bottom of the page (or the foot). Merriam-Webster defines a footnote as “a note of reference, explanation, or comment usually placed below the text on a printed page.”
In an academic research writing situation, footnotes often contain historical information or illuminate a specific but tangential fact related to the argument being advanced in the main body of the text. In some styles of research-based scholarship or journalism, footnotes provide bibliographic information, like a book title, author’s name, page number, or hyperlink (or all of these in a full citation).
Practically, footnotes appear in one of two ways: as superscript1 where a smaller number appears adjacent to the upper half of the text, or less commonly, as a bracketed number [1]. In both cases, a matching entry is placed at the bottom of the page.
Footnotes in Poetry
In poetry, a footnote is purely a stylistic choice on the part of the poet. The type of information typically noted in an academic footnote (e.g., citations to support an argument) is not necessarily a required component of a poem; poems do not need a “Works Cited” page.
But this is where the fun of footnoting begins!
For poets, footnotes are another tool to consider in the composition of a poem. They can serve a more traditional function by providing a reference, explanation, comment, or offer an opportunity for experimentation.
In my own poetic imagination, I appreciate the way footnotes contribute to my reading of a poem and guide my path in and out of the body of the poem. This has a different effect than a parenthetical phrase or a note in the back matter of a collection, as the presence of a footnote can create movement and become an interactive experience.
Here are a few examples of poems that use some form of footnoting:
1 “Seventh Circle of Earth” by Ocean Vuong
In “Seventh Circle of Earth,” Ocean Vuong uses footnotes in an experimental and provocative way—the poem itself is only footnotes.
First, there’s a short epigraph after the title, “On April 27, 2011, a gay couple, Michael Humphrey and Clayton Capshaw, was murdered by immolation in their home in Dallas, Texas.” Following this information, the numbers 1-7 are scattered in the negative space of the poem—suggesting these are the locations of the superscript of the footnotes.
Then, in the footnote space at the end of the page, are 7 numbered blocks of text punctuated with (/). Here is the first of these:
“As if my finger, / tracing your collarbone / behind closed doors, / was enough / to erase myself. To forget / we built this house knowing / it won’t last. How / does anyone stop / regret / without cutting / off his hands? / Another torch”
In this construction, Vuong creates a very different experience for his reader. The poem would certainly not have the same effect if these seven “notes” were to appear in the expected spaces on the page.
Since the poem’s epigraph indicates that its subjects were murdered by immolation, I read the footnoted negative space in the “body” of the poem as the absence of the physical bodies of the victims.
2 “Endtimes Meditation on Mothering Self-Care1” by Jenn Givhan
In “Endtimes Meditation on Mothering Self-Care1,” Jenn Givhan provides the reader with 8 footnotes, including one in the title of the poem itself: “The way one cares for a knot at the end of a frayed rope, scissors to a knotted scalp.”
Givhan’s footnotes contain personal and image-driven language that complements the text in the main body of the poem. They present the reader with a more personal voice, as the footnotes are written from the first-person perspective of the speaker that tonally contrasts with the language in the main poem.
Like in Vuong’s poem, these craft choices have a particular effect. In my reading, the footnoted lines of the poem reflect an inner dialogue of the speaker.
3 “Wherein the Author Provides Footnotes and Bibliographic Citation for the First Stanza Drafted After a Significant and Dangerous Depression Incurred Upon Being Referenced as a ‘Hack’ Both by Individuals Unknown to the Author and by Individuals Whom the Author had Previously Considered Friends (*)(†)(‡)(§),” by Jeanann Verlee
Jeanann Verlee’s poem, “Wherein the Author Provides Footnotes and Bibliographic Citation for the First Stanza Drafted After a Significant and Dangerous Depression Incurred Upon Being Referenced as a ‘Hack’ Both by Individuals Unknown to the Author and by Individuals Whom the Author had Previously Considered Friends (*)(†)(‡)(§),” really leans into the use of footnotes as the title (yes, that is a very long title) suggests it will.
Verlee plays with the academic convention of the footnote and is very self-reflexive overall. Like in Givhan’s poem, the title is footnoted using typographic symbols, “(*)(†)(‡)(§),” that point to four footnotes corresponding to each symbol. The first one (*) leads to “* Footnoted poem concept credit: (samples)...” The second, similar in nature, (†) points to “† Absurdist elongated title style: (samples)...” In both of these cases, Verlee uses footnotes to label craft elements and identify some influences from the literary past.
Following the title, Verlee packs multiple footnotes into each poetic line in the stanza-length poem. For example, the first line “by 351, when madness2 had overcome her3; when her body4” has a total of four notes; there are a total of 30 numbered footnotes in the poem and a few more symbol-based ones.
To take it even further, following the footnotes, Verlee places a lengthy bibliography of sources that provide a complete citation for each of the texts she refers to in the footnotes. For me, as a reader, the employment of this format in Verlee’s poem calls attention to the larger literary ecosystem that all writers give to and take from. She is making this ecology of influence explicit in the way she organizes the poem.
4 “If you look closely enough at a word, you’ll find it contains its opposite*” by Stephanie Gray
Another poem that experiments with footnotes is “If you look closely enough at a word, you’ll find it contains its opposite*” by Stephanie Gray. In this poem, Gray only uses two footnotes. One is an asterisk (*) that follows the title, which credits another literary work––“*After a line in Julian Talamantez Brolaski’s Phonosemantics and the Real,”.
The second footnote appears at the end of the line, “What part of Axl Rose is Bennie’s Jets**” leads to, “**Axl has said that it was listening to Elton John’s Bennie and the Jets as a young person that made him want to be a singer.” Like the footnote corresponding to the title, this one contains fairly straightforward information.
Unlike Verlee who seems to use footnotes to convey a larger meaning beyond the text, Gray’s footnotes appear genuine, almost traditional by comparison. In other words, they do the work that is expected of a footnote in a standard academic writing context.
📙 Read If you look closely enough at a word, you’ll find it contains its opposite* ↗
5 “There Is Scarcely More Than There Is (i)” by Jenny Boully
Jenny Boully’s poem, “There Is Scarcely More Than There Is (i)” uses Roman numerical footnotes, which, like in Gray’s poem, appear to be aligned with the traditional relationship of a footnote to a main text. The title “(i)” points to a basic citation, “(i) Stein, Gertrude. Lucy Church Amiably. New York: Something Else Press, 1969. (205).”
Boully’s work is organized into small prose blocks, each with an italicized and bolded subtitle attached to a footnote (except for the one section which is just titled “Chapel”). For example, the first line/subtitle in the poem, “a short and fleeting visit (ii)” refers to another textual citation, “(ii) Walser, Robert. Selected Stories. New York: NYRB, 2002. (55).”
There is only one footnoted line that is not a subtitle of a section: “Never in all my years as a writer have I written a tale in which a person, struck by their own hand, falls down. This is the first time in my work that a person has suicided (x).'' In this case, the (x) refers to a specific line on a specific page in one of Robert Walser’s stories, “(x) See Walser: "Never in all my years as a writer have I written a tale in which a person, struck by a bullet, falls down. This is the first time in my work that a person has croaked" (170).” Clearly, Boully’s line very closely mirrors the Walser one.
Boully’s craft choice here works to emphasize the parity of the lines, but also stands out by being the only use of a footnote within the text blocks of the work. As a reader, I assume Boully wants me to attach more meaning and importance to this line.
6 “Urning” by Layli Long Soldier
“Urning” by Layli Long Soldier includes nine footnotes using asterisks as a numbering method. Long Soldier's craft choices with footnotes function in a different way—they work almost as an erasure in the main body of the poem.
For example, the first line, “* bring us to dark knots the black” refers to “* may all the grief” at the bottom of the page. The remaining asterisks all work in much the same way, they appear to be a missing puzzle piece the poet has pulled to the bottom of the page.
Like many of the other footnotes discussed here, this approach also pulls the reader down to the notes and then back into the main poem. However, what is remarkable in this poem is that the footnotes as a group of lines also create a coherent meaningful unit on their own:
* may all the grief
** may all
*** the loss
**** all your misdeeds
***** love of my soul
****** all his things
******* spit in a cup
******** night is a womb
********* the definition
For me, this has a very powerful effect—both in the visual effect of the asterisks and the way these omitted phrases coalesce to extend and enhance the poem’s meaning.
📕 Read Urning ↗
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As these six remarkable poems demonstrate, footnotes can be an effective way to layer meaning into a poem. Footnotes can also work in a more traditional sense by making a bibliographic reference or an explanation of an obscure term or concept.
So, poets, make your way over to the “References” tab in Microsoft Work and try the “Insert Footnote” command (in Google docs, it can be found on the “insert” tab). Take a poem you’re working to revise and move a few lines or images into the footnote space, then take a step back and watch how the poem moves in new ways.
This article was published on May 8, 2024. Written by:
