The Endarkenment Pages 45-72 - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

The EndarkenmentPages 45-72

David BarsamianSlide2

Jeffrey McDaniel

American Poet, Teacher

Born 1967, Philadelphia PA

BA from Sarah Lawrence College 1990MFA (Master of Fine Arts) George Mason University 1993Published 5 books to dateTeacher at Sarah Lawrence CollegeSlide3

“morning walk, 43 hours without sleep”Speaker describes what he observes on his morning walk

Main Point

: Speaker is critical environment, somewhat critical of culture.

“How dirty you [the East River] flow, like the unwashed hair of a speed freak with a chatter in her teeth.”“I would’ve called you Escobar.” Reference to Pablo Escobar, a notorious Colombian drug lord. At his height, his cartel supplied an estimated 80% of the cocaine smuggled into the U.S.“I’m not afraid of black cats. It’s the white cats who chug canned beer and blast heavy metal that freak me out.”Slide4

“Whitman on the F” Speaker describes an experience with Walt Whitman on a certain public train.

Walt Whitman was an American poet, born 1819 died 1892, part of transition from transcendentalism and realism, and incorporated both in his poetry.

Main Point

: Speaker comments on Whitman’s transition to realism.“Over her right shoulder, I see Walt Whitman wobble to his feet like an overflowing barrel of flesh and beard and smile.”“’I hate when he does this,’ he says, thumbing at Old Walt, ‘playing the jolly big shot, the vegetarian skyscraper, doing belly flops into the spotlight, like his words are the organic cement, making us all one.”“I’m Walter Whitman, the human being.

Can you imagine sharing a soul with that beast?

”Slide5

“Watch the Closing Doors”Speaker describes thought process in depression, or suicidal thoughts.

Main Point

: Speaker compares ideas to parasites.

“Shouldn’t the world mind be plural? The way it shouts one thing, then another.”“Marry him. Don’t marry him. There must be at least two of them up there in the brain pit.”“Them” referring to the parasite(s).“Oh, I can feel the worm slithering, growling into the microphone: get off at the next stop, jitterbug into oncoming traffic.

”Slide6

“Air Empathy”Speaker describes what would happen if everyone’s emotions came out in his plane.

Main Point

: Speaker asserts that suppressing emotions allows for progress.

“…a two-year-old in the seat behind me screeches his miniature guts out.”“Instead of dreaming of stuffing a wad of duct tape into his mouth, I envy him, how he lets his pain spurt into the open.”“How many whimpers before another passenger joined in?Soon the stewardess hunched over the drink cart, the pilot gushing into the controls, the entire plane: an arrow of grief quivering through the sky.”Slide7

“Wildlife on the 4”Speaker describes interaction with a man and his ostrich on the subway.

Main Point

: Speaker is somewhat critical of New York culture, critical of animal treatment.

“Hey, you can’t do that, I wanted to say, you can’t bring ostriches on the subway, but this was New York, we don’t talk to strangers…”“…so I looked down at my newspaper and thought about the plight of a flightless bird: faster than most horses, yet so hard to saddle.”Ostriches, & other flightless birds

yearn

to be saddled?Slide8

Odysseus on the GPoem comically describes Odysseus from The Odyssey

, Homer.

Main Point

: Poem comically recounts Odysseus’s achievements and calls for him to be finished and “ascend.”Context: Odysseus is in disguise for a part of The Odyssey.“Which one has Athena standing over your shoulder, holding a cloak of mist, telling you when to duck from nightsticks?”“I know there’s more than you’re showing me, know that under that blizzard of whiskers there’s a face, that inside those black bags there’s a pair of eyes ready to roll out like dice.”Slide9

“St. Theresa of the 6”Speaker describes interaction in the subway, then describes visions of space and voices of some saint.

Main Point

: Speaker is critical of subways, and public transportation.

“I seal my eyes and see sequins, see constellations peeling off their sparkly bathrobes.”“What is it about the subway? Not just the crush of bodies. Not just the lights flickering. Not just how it commands us to sway to its gnarled music, halfway to the underworld where no moral light can reach.”“I will be your life-sized bible. I will be your eucharist, turning your salt water tongue into a stem of crushed grapes.”This could be describing the speaker calling on St. Theresa (a Catholic saint) to make his response to the event forgiving and not violent.

The

eucharist

is a Christian tradition that involves eating bread and drinking wine (typically grape juice) as to remember Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross.Slide10

“Blessings from the Shrine Pit”Poem describes a person searching for a god to believe in.

Main Point

: Speaker is critical of traditional gods, believes that a god varies from person to person.

“God will send you a signal, but it’s your job to see it.”“God isn’t easy, the way the devil is.”“You gotta hit the street and find a god that fits you.”“You need a god with housemaid knees so when your mind’s flopping in the gutter he can bend right quick and snap it up.”Speaker could be critical of organized religion that puts a barrier between one person and god, requiring a messenger to get through.Slide11

“Little Sadness”Speaker compares sad emotions to a pet.Main Point

: Speaker sadistically suggests that memories that cause pain can be called upon at any given moment, because they’re internalized.

“I know the pain is inside me, that the sadness has not gone away forever, but where is it?

“Oh, here he comes, the three-legged bugger, with mother’s turpentine eyes and fur the exact gray the afternoon sky was when Dad hurled the television out the third-story window.”Slide12

“Oblivion Chiclets”Speaker explains why he couldn’t attend his mother’s surgery.

Main Point

: Speaker laments on the history of drug abuse in his family

“When I saw you outside the methadone clinic, half your teeth gone, I had to turn, couldn’t watch the family tree being hacked into more firewood.”“I know about the more in morphine, what it’s like to wake and feel like a chalk outline of yourself.”“If I could, I’d have a scientist shrink me down and inject me into your bloodstream, and I’d go with a wash brush and suds bucket, scrub the opium out of each one of your cells.”Slide13

“Day 4305”Speaker describes struggles with substance abuse.

Main Point

: The speaker’s family has a long history of substance abuse, and he’s determined to make it out alive.

“The drunkard is on ice. To him it’s still December 6th, 1993.”The drunkard is still alive.“If I live this life 100 more times, 98 times I die drunk.”“On every leaf of every branch of my family tree, I see this illness, this hunger that multiplies when you feed it, this octopus expanding in the belly.”“I am the miracle. I am the hand reaching out of the wreck. I don’t care if it’s true. It’s what I need to tell myself to make it out the door alive.”Slide14

“The USS Goodbye”Speaker compares process of waiting for medical results to an instant departure.

Main Point

: Speaker dwells upon the gravity of his wife’s situation, and ultimately has a bleak outlook on it.

“In the morning, the surgeon will study the X-rays, predict her future, as if she’s on a boat and he can see the wave swelling in the distance.”“She wishes people were standing on the pier, yelling out her name, before she vanishes into the fog.”Suggestive of lack of family or friends.“There are no string quartets, no champagne bottles busted over the hull.”Slide15

“Self-Portrait as a Trampoline, or the six-month anniversary of my daughter’s birth”Speaker compares daughter’s playing as a visceral and painful experience.

Main Point

: The speaker doesn’t like having to raise his daughter by himself.

“I hate being the last line of defense, but my wife is far away, in someone else’s backyard.”“At night, I can hear the screams of the children bouncing on her, the tension and release of her taut fabric.”From the perspective of a trampoline.Slide16

“Just for the Record”Speaker tells Binny

the description of his death

Main Point

: The speaker sarcastically recounts the death of a relative.“-for Binny”Likely a family member or close friend.“They found you in a parked car, a telescope plunged into your forearm, head tilted back, eyes bulging, as if you’d just seen the greatest constellation in the history of your bloodstream.”Telescope likely refers to a syringe.Slide17

“The Outburst”Speaker recounts his actions of the night before and contemplates his reason for them.

Main Point

: The speaker feels no responsibility for his actions, and chalks them up to him “being a man.”

“What did they expect? I’m a man. Isn’t rage a field I’m condemned to plow?”“The snow is less yielding here, already seems to have made up its mind against me. I jab the metal end into the ice, try to explain my point of view, but it won’t listen.”Speaker comparing his wife to the snow? “try to explain my point of view”Slide18

“Self-Portrait as a Stick of Butter, or the four-day anniversary of my daughter’s birth”The speaker is a stick of butter. Speaker describes his ambitions as a stick of butter.

Main Point

: The speaker comically describes how he yearns to be used to delight someone, likely his four year old daughter.

“I wish someone would open the door and spread me over a warm piece of toast.”“I’m afraid I’ll be left out overnight on the kitchen table, and will melt into a puddle, useless.”