External Pressures

My apologies. I am under pressure from several deadlines (it comes with working in academia) and I won’t be able to devote the energy to writing sarcastic mythology for the time being. I plan to return on September 7^th. In the meantime, enjoy the end of summer.

The Next First Time

The Next First Time

A milestone, in Roman speech,

is what one would encounter each

and every mile in the reach

of Roman roads,

and not, as we prefer to say,

a great event, a single day

that instantly will pass away

beyond our reach.

So at some annual event

there always must be some present,

the new initiates, who spent

it overwhelmed,

while all the others sigh at them

remembering that past age when

they thought that world beyond their ken

and not routine

and for a moment they resent

that froth of gay embarrassment

that held them when they underwent

that death sublime,

But even if it hadn’t been,

we might forbear to scoff at them,

for time will roll us down again

the next First Time.

      I wrote this on the train home from my first APA (that is, SCS) conference. Having spent this past week on the road at a different conference, I was planning to post this poem last Sunday, since the theme seemed apt. As you can see, in the end I decided not to do so, mostly because this poem has never said what I wanted it to say. This happens, sometimes: I start at the beginning of a poem with a particular image or emotion that I want to examine, and the thing spins out of control until I’m talking about something completely different. For example, when I was in high school, I had a very intense experience the morning I was going to take the SAT. I was so nervous about the ordeal that I woke up before dawn and sat in bed, staring out a window that faced out over my backyard, that gave way to a picturesque wood (a drainage ditch in disguise), that climbed up a steep hill before you reached the next row of houses. The whole experience seemed terribly fateful, as I faced down anxieties about how this one day might determine my future and watched dawn gradually illuminate the landscape, watched a line of windows at the top of the hill light up one by one as my neighbors came down to their kitchens for coffee. After that morning I spent a year beating my brains out, trying to capture the experience in poetry, before giving up. About a year after that, I tried again to write a different poem about how I viewed those high school anxieties from the vantage point of being halfway through college--also a flop. I did finally use some of the ideas I had gleaned from that morning to write a poem that I deemed worthwhile, but the poem turned out to be about a persona who felt rejected and unloved by the entire world, particularly her mother (?), and not at all about anxieties about intellectual tests as determining factors of worldly success from the perspective of someone on the cusp of adulthood.

      So anyway, one of the hazards of writing poetry is that the poem might not turn out to say what you want it to say. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it never does. On the train back from my first APA conference, I was thinking about what it’s like to attend an event for the first time, or for the fifth time, or for the fiftieth time. There are plenty of big annual events that every year draw in a complement of first-time attendees, and meanwhile have a reliable gang of old hands who can each be counted on to attend maybe 80% of the time. If you’re a newcomer, the entire experience can be pleasantly overwhelming, between all the people you’ve never met and all the things you’ve never had the chance to do. Then again, if you’re an old hand, you might see the experience as rather tedious and unnecessary, another rehash of the same stuff you see every year. I wanted to call attention to how the old hands were once first-timers themselves, and would do better to remind themselves of their previous excitement in the event rather than scorn the excitement they observe in newer attendees, in particular because, no matter how seasoned and world-weary these old hands may be, they no doubt still have some first times still lurking in their future, even if they anticipate no first times except arriving on Saint Peter’s doorstep. There will be for everyone a Next First Time, when they might be overawed by some new experience--to their benefit.

      No matter how long I squint at it, I don’t think that’s what this poem says. It doesn’t necessarily need to arrive at my predetermined objective; some poetry is well served by taking off in its own direction--even so, when they do, I find it a little unsatisfying, because I still want to reach my original goal. But here we are; I’ve polished this poem up as well as I can for the time being, and I after all that work I wanted to give a small window into my compositional processes. If I’d had my way, this poem would have been something different, but it’s not. I hope you nonetheless enjoy it.