Originally Posted by Glenn Wright
Hi, Jim—
You do an excellent job of conveying the N’s emotional condition. He is a reluctant prophet, like Jonah, who is concealing his fear and anger in order to get along with his friends and co-workers, and he finds that concealment to carry a heavy price.
You are so good at seeing meaning in a poem. I think that sometimes readers see the author's's subconscious coming through much better than the author does. This poem is the story of an N that I mean to represent as a literary "everyman" who has been in the boardroom and on the workroom floor but who cannot escape the burdens of his own lack of confidence and the demand to compete in the survivor game afoot in the real world. I came of age in the late sixties, early seventies, graduating high school in 1970. Back then, anti-heroes were coming much into vogue and the malaise of everydayness was taken for granted. I think I find it too easy to just depict symptoms and leave it at that, no need to justify the pessimistic view, as you point out more or less in your next comment below:
What is less clear (and maybe it is supposed to be) is the cause of his unease. Is he afraid that his political beliefs, if revealed, would make him unpopular? Is he unwilling to be a whistle-blower at work, fearing retribution from colleagues? Clearly the N feels that there is something wrong that needs to be pointed out forcefully, but he lacks the courage to speak up. At the end, he prays for this courage to be able to be his honest self. I wanted to know a bit more about the situation causing his self-castigation. The title suggests that as a “plebe,” he is a junior member of the organization he wants to criticize, but “plebe” can also mean a member of the disenfranchised, non-patrician class of Roman society.
I searched for a word besides "plebe," which seems too associated with being a newbie now, especially one new to college life. My other ideas were "Fool's Prayer" and "Joe Schmoe's Prayer," none of them seeming right.
I especially liked, “I lived in a petting zoo of herbivores,” suggesting that the prevailing social norms forbid any emotional display that might seem aggressive or challenging.
Thanks for saying so.
I wondered about S3L2: “I’ve stood as heretic on trial bewitched.” The syntax is a bit tortured, and I was confused because he seems to have said earlier that he avoided revealing his “heretical” ideas.
I have long been a tortured syntax kind of guy, I admit. Like I feel about overt rhyme, I think a little twisted syntax helps to find ideas and to flash originality that wouldn't be found otherwise. I know I am in a small minority of writers who still feel this way, and that it hurts my chances of being taken seriously by the modernists. I just think that "Four score and seven years ago..." and "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your..." are memorable for mainly one reason, their tortured syntax. Now, that said, because I haven't come up with anything great with my tortured syntax in this instance, I should probably revise it as you suggest.
I enjoyed the poem very much! Hope this is helpful.
Thanks for the comments. Lately, I've been needing to sleep on advice before it can sink in and spark creativity. The lifespan of interest in a thread on the sphere maxes out pretty quickly and my revisions are slower than once were. Of course, we can play ping-pong with revisions too, if we try to make them too quickly. Jim
Glenn
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