Dictionaries are our friends

The poem featured today on Verse Daily is "Amazon Parable" by Jeffrey Thomson, and it was published in Quarterly West, a literary journal I have long admired. The poem is decent; it recounts the Amazonian legend of bees that, instead of stinging their victims, steal their victims' hair. But the poem isn't about the legend; it is, in the poem's words, about "the weight / the story carries." Good enough.

But I have a problem with the poem, and with Quarterly West (and Verse Daily) for publishing it. Here's the first sentence of the poem:

The bees that will strip every hair
from your head instead of swelling
your hands with a thatch of venom,

that will leave you bald and clean
and unstung, they are my subject
today.

Look at that word "thatch." Here's the OED's definition: Material used in thatching; straw or similar material with which roofs are covered; particularly b. that actually forming a roof, the thatching.

The subsequent definitions don't stray far; "thatch" meaning head of hair (and pubic hair); "thatch" meaning layer of matted debris atop a lawn; "thatch" meaning tall, coarse grass. So in what sense can "a thatch of venom" swell someone's hands? The word is simply misused.

I'm not arguing against the figurative use of language, obviously. But "thatch" provides no striking figuration of venom; it does not offer us a new or interesting way to see the bees' poison. It merely distracts. And any editor worth her salt should write the poet and say, "I like this poem, but could we do something about 'thatch'? It makes no sense." At which point any poet worth his salt should be humiliated that he used a word of which he did not know the meaning.