Essay
#3: Response to Poetry: Work
by
Maggie Gray | November 12, 2015
Since
the Industrial Revolution, Americans of all ages and social classes have become
“slaves to the clock.” Chad Walsh, Theodore Roethke, Paul Walker and Marsha
Major have written poems that evoke a sense of melancholy regarding the working
class American using similar techniques. These poems give their readers a
glimpse into the lives and thoughts of the American worker who, while
subscribing to the life society has structured for them, is not finding a
greater fulfillment in their craft but is passively wishing for something more
gratifying. Through phrase structure, creative adjective and verb use, colorful
(or a lack of colorful) imagery and rhythm, these poets create a sense of
incompleteness, repetitiveness, and wistful wonder of what may be in store for
any that can escape the daily routine of the masses. (More after the Jump)
Three
of these four poets come full circle in their poem to emphasize the redundancy
of the day-to-day lives they are living and observing. Most obviously, Chad
Walsh begins and ends his piece with the same two lines. “From buses beached
like an invasion fleet / They fill the waiting room with striding feet” (560,
Lines 1-2, 21-22). In between these lines, Walsh lyricizes the commute of the
white man and the “lesser breeds if black and brown” (560, Line 5) as they go
through the same motions to get to work, back home, through dinner, to sleep
and back to their commute again. “At six a drink, at seven dinner’s served. /
At ten or twelve, depressed, undressed, unnerved, / They mount their wives,
dismount, they doze and dream. / Apocalyptic Negroes in a stream” (560, Lines
11-14). Not only does Walsh make it clear that there is little to no happiness
through his used of adjectives, his verb choice in describing the sleeping and
sexing lives of these people completely removes all romance from what is
typically seen as one of the highlights of life – family and love. By finishing with the same lines he began, Walsh
has further articulated that, regardless of the day of the week, Americans are
subjected to the same routine over and over again.
Theodore
Roethke chooses to begin his stream of consciousness stating, “I have known the
inexorable sadness of pencils, / Neat in their boxes” (44, Lines 1-2) and ends
describing the dust of this monotony “Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey
standard faces” (44, Line 13). While it is less clear, the “inexorable sadness of
pencils” (44, Line 1) and the “duplicate grey standard faces” (44, Line 13) are
related because they are one in the same. The grey tip of a number two pencil
is a standard commodity in schools and, in describing the people’s faces as
grey, standard, he is bringing the two together. One could even argue that
Roethke is comparing the pencils, “Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and
paper-weight” (44, Line 2) to those trapped in institutions: following orders,
abiding by what is asked of them, “neat in their boxes” (44, Line 2). Just as
the other authors have done, between Roethke’s open and close adjectives
conveying hopelessness, sadness and weary are littered. He clearly describes
how desolate and unmoving he sees the traditions he is bound to. “Lonely reception
room…The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher…Endless duplication of lives
and objects…long afternoons of tedium” (44, Lines 5-6, 8, 11). His chosen
phrases paint an image of a greyscale life; lack-luster and unoriginal.
Paul
Walker takes a morbid view in approaching this same tedium by beginning “my
life” pre-birth and ending post-mortem. “zygote / in womb…on bus / in tomb” (53.
Lines 1-2, 7-8). Sandwiched within these lines, Walker has but four lines made
up of only eight words. He uses a minimalist tactic to convey how little life
is lived between the institutions we are confined by. Walker travels through a
life in staccato fashion with this poem; a stylistic decision to create a
repetitive rhythm for the reader, congruent with how he views existence.
While
Marsha Major’s, “Office Job,” does not use the same full circle effect used by
the other authors, her adjective use shares the common purpose of creating a
bleak interpretation of the workplace and how it oppresses the passion of being.
“It smells of briefcases and wilted white shirts” (33, Line 1) relates the
smell of her occupation and daily uniform to an adjective typically used to
describe dying flowers. Her choice of the word “wilted” creates an idea for the
reader of how uninspired and stunted she sees her job. Major keeps her poem
short and closes with words that convey disconnect to her career; “how many
days must I play on this stage / for which I have no / relevant acting /
experience” (33, Lines 5-8). To describe herself as an unfamiliar actress is to
describe herself as a person working in a job she gains no self-actualization
from nor does she feel comfortable in. She is using her personal experience to
convey what many feel: that they are stuck in a position they must continue
pursuing for monetary compensation necessary to life rather than follow their
passions and be fulfilled by their daily work.
Today,
from the time we enter the education system and have comprehensive learning
abilities, we are taught to absorb as much knowledge as possible, put said
knowledge to use and chase our dreams as fervently and far as we possibly can.
These poems provoke a question within me: Were
these authors, subjects, narrators, observers all taught the same thing in
their youth? Do these people feel that they have fallen short of their dreams?
I find that many young adults that I am acquainted with feel a hole, or that
they are existing in a state of limbo at the quarter century mark of their
lives. Are we getting too old to follow our dreams with reckless abandon? Does
their come a time when you have run out of free space to chase your dreams and must
replace your dreams with a well-paying nine to five? I would argue against it.
These poems describe the masses as a singular entity forever stuck on a daily
repeat cycle and, while I agree that this has become the norm, I hardly think
it is a current we cannot swim against.
Works Cited
Major,
Marsha. "Office Job." Poetry on the Buses 1999. King County
Metro, 1999. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.
Roethke,
Theodore. The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke. Garden City: Anchor,
1975. 44. Print.
Walker,
Paul. "My Life." Poetry on the Buses 1999. King County Metro,
1999. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.
Walsh, Chad. Port Authority
Terminal: 9 A.M. Monday. New York: McGraw- Hill, 1994. Print.
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