[Michael F]

Hi Sam –

Agreed, there is no accounting for taste. I have read pieces by JG before that I could not make head nor tail of … but this one grabbed me. I don’t claim to understand all of it, but much of it made sense to me. I’m glad for that, as I often feel, like Andrew S, that the failure is mine when I can't appreciate an established poet (as is the case with Ashbery, sadly). As briefly as I can:

I thought at the opening that JG was referring to the financial crisis and the bailout of the big banks. That action bothered me greatly at the time, and I think (as I have said here before) that we are still living through social and political consequences of those moves. (More broadly, I think it's a proxy for injustice.) I read part of what follows as the poet’s argument with herself (the trope of the bird, the moral conscience, justice) over the feeling of indignation, and seeking justification for it – a moral foundation, as it were, a sure path to just change. I also have the feeling that we could use a critique of our values. He who has the gold should not necessarily rule. Perhaps it was ever thus; perhaps I’m just not old enough yet to have perspective.

Anyway, the attempt to find justification, the sure path, does not succeed and the poet simply has her feelings. I read her at the end as trying to convince herself to be content with those, to find the transcendence that some believe is possible, perhaps through art (e.g., Glass), but to me it seems the poet does not fully convince herself. The back and forth, the changes mind, the nagging indignation, the final seeming despair over argumentation as a sure means of change: I find it very postmodern: there are no ‘skyhooks’, to quote Rorty, one of my favorite PoMo philosophers. There is only the way we live.

That’s my reading in broad strokes. I admit I may be doing more eisegesis than exegesis; I admit I may be using this poem as a prism or a mirror for my own thoughts. But if that is indeed JG’s project, i.e., it’s a Rorschach test, then it succeeded with me -- in this case. I enjoyed the hunt, and I (mostly) liked what I found. It made me reflect and remember, and it touched something within.

That’s my humble two cents. I hope it’s tangent to something approximating clarity.

Mike