[Susan McLean]

Out of Sync

It's almost one. Which means it's almost two.
To read the manual fills our hearts with dread,
so setting dashboard clocks is hard to do.
It's almost one, which means it's almost two.
Though half of every year our time's askew,
frankly, we'd rather do the math instead:
it's almost one, which means it's almost two.
To read the manual fills our hearts with dread.


Revisions:
L1 was "It's almost one, which means it's almost two."
L3 was "so setting dashboard clocks we just can't do."
L6 colon was a period
L7 "it's" was "It's"

[Glenn Wright]

Finally! A brave voice challenging the scourge of modern American society! Daylight Savings time. I live in Alaska, where the position of the sun has almost nothing to do with the clock time. Twice a year I have to perform this meaningless ritual. Thanks for speaking out! Very nice triolet.

[Perry Miller]

Even though I'm a person who so adores DST that I wish it were* always in place, I like the poem. My first thought was that you could go for something deeper, about how advancing time doesn't change reality, or how we might just keep advancing time to escape our lives, but that is getting into fantasy.

I'm surprised that DST is used in Alaska. I mean, you go from being in the dark almost all the time, to being in the light almost all the time, so what does it matter?

Still, for me, living on the East Coast, DST is the syrup on my sundae. It makes everything better. (I hope you still like me, Glenn.)

* "Were" is right, right? I almost used "was". When I was young, that particular grammatical rule was ingrained in me, but it seems to have faded.

[Alexandra Baez]

I like this fine except L3, which with its inversion slips too far out of natural speech to feel credible. But I enjoyed the metrical variation in L6--it seems to come at just the right spot and makes a great case for the claim that creating a conversational feel is an adequate justification for such variation.

[Susan McLean]

Thanks, everyone, for the responses.

Glenn, I don't hate DST, but the changing back and forth is inconvenient, and can be dangerous, I hear, when sleep is disrupted.

Perry, yes, "were" is correct in that context, a "past contrary to fact" situation. This poem is just light, mildly satirical verse, so I don't want to take it anywhere serious.

Alexandra, people do occasionally invert syntax for emphasis and other reasons. I have tried removing the inversion, which reads more smoothly but feels less emphatic to me. I'll see what people think of it.

Susan

[Alexandra Baez]

Susan, I find your new L3 a vast improvement. Personally, I was so distracted by the artificial feel of the previous version's syntax that any intended sense of emphasis in it was lost on me. But I suppose that if you were keen on having emphasis in the new line, you could say something like "setting dashboard clocks is hell to do."

[Mark McDonnell]

Hi Susan,

This raised a little smile for me in the way that a bit of observational comedy might. It takes a familiar annoyance that seems almost too trivial for poetry and shines a light on it. It seems more a grouse about modern technology, how it can complicate rather than simplify our lives, than a grouse about DST itself. After all, I'm sure you move the hands on your old-fashioned clocks in your house easily enough.

Fun.

[Susan McLean]

Alexandra, thanks for letting me know that you think the fix works.

Mark, yes, it is partly a satire of the difficulty of modern technology and partly a satire of people who will put up with any inconvenience rather than bother to leaf through a manual. Observational humor was the goal. I can change the clocks on most of my electronic devices without too much difficulty, but the technology of my mother's car is not self-evident without surfing the manual.

Susan

[Perry Miller]

As I read the poem, I like it more and more. It is short, pithy, precise. However, why are you limiting your dread to the manual for your CAR (as indicated by the word "dashboard")? Why not bemoan having to reset ALL your clocks. Here is a suggestion that would accomplish that:

It's almost one, which means it's almost two.
Reading manuals fills our hearts with dread,
so setting all our clocks is hard to do.
It's almost one, which means it's almost two.
Though half of every year our time's askew,
frankly, we'd rather do the math instead.
It's almost one, which means it's almost two.
Reading manuals fills our hearts with dread.

"Manuals" is an awkward word. The thesaurus might come up with something better. Of course, you'll need a word with stresses on the same vowels, which will be hard to do. That would leave out "directions".

[Susan McLean]

Perry, this poem is not meant to be about the difficulty of resetting all of the clocks, but only those clocks that one could never figure out how to set without consulting a manual. Many clocks are well labeled and straightforward in terms of how to set them. "Manual" does have an extra unstressed syllable, so I would call this poem loose iambic. But I am not sure that "user's guide" or any other synonym would work equally well.

Susan