Escort!
from "Benediction for the Savior of Orlando"
Signs and wonders: Jesus Is Lord Over Greater Orlando
snake-tagged in cadmium on a vine-grouwn cyclone
fence along I-4 southbound north of downtown
is a credo that subverts the conventional wisdom
that Walt Disney is the messiah and his minions the christened
stewards of this place, that the Kingdom to Come shall be Mickey's,
that the bread of our communion will be proffered by A.T.M.
and the wine quaffed without taint of sulfites
or trademark infringement, all of which is certainly true
and yet too pat, too much like shooting mice in a barrel
when there are far nastier vermin to contest
and purgatories far worse than Disney's realm of immortal
simulacra suckled at the breast of Lake Buena Vista.
*
See also.
*
These opening lines - this opening sentence - reminds me of the way I taught some canny upperclassmen to read McGrath and Goldbarth and their ilk: disservice though it may have been, I advised that they simply underline their best guess as to the poem's main and sub-ideas. "Purgatories far worse" is a good candidate, and "far nastier vermin to contest" slightly less so. And sure enough the poem's a rollicking good timey dirge for strip-mall America - "Chuck E. Cheese is the monstrous embodiment of a nightmare, / the bewhiskered Mephistopheles of ring toss." The best of McGrath's poems provide these kinds of keys, and there are enough keys in McGrath to keep the poem jingling, as it were. The poem "talks," but isn't conversational. As speech, is remains elevated in a way that the speech of other poets using this so-called "ultra-talk" technique (I'm glad that phrase has died before its birth) just isn't. "Benediction"'s language might be talkier than most poems, but it's not talky; it's as high a speech as the plastic chintz materials that is its muse can afford.
*
If the above paragraph reads murkily to you, it's not you: I gave blood today on one of the longer days so far. But hey, you, give blood. There are more car crashes and shootings in your town than you may know. When you go, talk to the attending nurse. Bring a book of poems. You will find that a veil over your workaday goings-on will fall away. Spoken and written words bear new weight. Angles of commonplace objects pique your curiosity. And if you're lucky, you'll get an unexpected compliment: "Done in four minutes! Wow, those are some juicy veins." Pizza, Cheese Nips, and Oreos to the left.
Signs and wonders: Jesus Is Lord Over Greater Orlando
snake-tagged in cadmium on a vine-grouwn cyclone
fence along I-4 southbound north of downtown
is a credo that subverts the conventional wisdom
that Walt Disney is the messiah and his minions the christened
stewards of this place, that the Kingdom to Come shall be Mickey's,
that the bread of our communion will be proffered by A.T.M.
and the wine quaffed without taint of sulfites
or trademark infringement, all of which is certainly true
and yet too pat, too much like shooting mice in a barrel
when there are far nastier vermin to contest
and purgatories far worse than Disney's realm of immortal
simulacra suckled at the breast of Lake Buena Vista.
*
See also.
*
These opening lines - this opening sentence - reminds me of the way I taught some canny upperclassmen to read McGrath and Goldbarth and their ilk: disservice though it may have been, I advised that they simply underline their best guess as to the poem's main and sub-ideas. "Purgatories far worse" is a good candidate, and "far nastier vermin to contest" slightly less so. And sure enough the poem's a rollicking good timey dirge for strip-mall America - "Chuck E. Cheese is the monstrous embodiment of a nightmare, / the bewhiskered Mephistopheles of ring toss." The best of McGrath's poems provide these kinds of keys, and there are enough keys in McGrath to keep the poem jingling, as it were. The poem "talks," but isn't conversational. As speech, is remains elevated in a way that the speech of other poets using this so-called "ultra-talk" technique (I'm glad that phrase has died before its birth) just isn't. "Benediction"'s language might be talkier than most poems, but it's not talky; it's as high a speech as the plastic chintz materials that is its muse can afford.
*
If the above paragraph reads murkily to you, it's not you: I gave blood today on one of the longer days so far. But hey, you, give blood. There are more car crashes and shootings in your town than you may know. When you go, talk to the attending nurse. Bring a book of poems. You will find that a veil over your workaday goings-on will fall away. Spoken and written words bear new weight. Angles of commonplace objects pique your curiosity. And if you're lucky, you'll get an unexpected compliment: "Done in four minutes! Wow, those are some juicy veins." Pizza, Cheese Nips, and Oreos to the left.
posted by Wil at
9:18 PM
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