[Rick Mullin]

Tattoo Man
In Memoriam

Gone the days of Polaroid April sunshine,
sacrosanct Memorial Day encounters;
Pinewood Derbies, Rotary potluck dinners,
dollar sign notebooks.

Now the taste of something unlike tomorrow.
Now a rage subliminal to the suburbs.
Promise made, an endless excuse delivered.
Enter a stranger

marked for life, thrown out of the Caldwell Diner,
pinched at Jack’s while squeezing the pomegranate.
Bounced from bars, a put-upon Queequeg doling
infinite cowboy.

“Holy Mack’rel, even the face, Paulina!”
Holy arms, a coloratura ocean.
Here be dragons. There a peculiar shade of
prodigal lodger.

You’ll recall. You called the police, remember?
Shielded children, shocked when you saw him coming?
Now your white Republican enclave shimmers.
Down in the summer

news comes slow: A lull in the Captain’s Tower.
Valerie and Vivian stack the tray for
tickets to the Teenage Patrolman’s Breakfast.
Aren’t we happy.

____
S6L2 stack was trick

New S4 added


S4L3 dragons was monsters


Initial epigraph named the man

.

[Carl Copeland]

Rick, I’m too far out of it for this poem. It makes me think that if I went back to the Midwestern suburb where I grew up, I wouldn’t understand a thing anybody is saying.

[Deborah J. Shore]

Hello, Rick,

Interesting to see a Sapphic here!

I’m with you through the first stanza and find Polaroid sunshine to be clever. I’m just vaguely familiar enough w Polaroids to have an idea of the hue of light this must reference.

I’m less sure about the second stanza. The first line feels really abstract. I guess the speaker is indicating that even as today is different than the past, the future will be different yet. At this point I’m wondering if the words are working for the meter or the other way around. The third line again has me a bit dubious. I can come up with referents, but is it compelling enough? In general I’m questioning the flow of this stanza.

I imagine squeezing the pomegranate refers to some sexual harassment. Do I know what it means for the Queequong to be both put-upon and doling infinite cowboy? Not for sure. I’m imagining some anti-women’s-lib sort of complainer possibly? But that wouldn’t make the Republicans wary in the next stanza. So I’m probably not nailing the meaning of that line. I did think earlier that the “show me a man” might be some sort of complaint about the lack of real grit in men today.

Whatever the case, the language is fresh and vibrant again now, which can be hard to achieve in Latin meters, it seems.

Stanza three works nicely.

I wouldn’t know what the captain’s tower is, maybe some sort of reference to Moby Dick. I also don’t know what it means to trick the tray but imagine it might have to do with cheating a raffle drawing. The final line does seem to fit the general tone of the poem.

Congratulations for modernizing the meter. I think there are often spots in good poems that will elude many readers in their incarnated particularities but which invite us to inhabit the world the speaker has conjured nonetheless. And in that case I’m more concerned that I believe the *poet* has a clear vision of what he or she is conveying than that I personally get everything. And if I’m convinced that the poet’s vision and reasoning is clear, I’m more likely to press in enough over time to get some of what I missed.. And so that’s where I’d recommend revising toward as more feedback rolls in.

Good to read you here,
Deborah

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Rick—

This poem really challenges me. I get glimmers of light through the opacity of some of the language. It seems to me to be a lament for dying civility and the American sense of community, which is being replaced by a simmering sense of tribal grievance. The anti-social character whose behavior would have merited a 911 call a generation ago is now a typical MAGA Republican. I supposed that the reference to Queequeg, the Polynesian harpooner in Moby-Dick, is the tattooed man in the title. The last four lines baffled me. Tricking the tray is a kind of low-budget fundraiser, but the Captain’s Tower (another Melville reference?), Valerie, Vivian, and the Teenage Patrolmen stumped me. Help!

Glenn

[Mark McDonnell]

Well, my Bob Dylan alarm started flashing at the Captain's Tower and Valerie and Vivian.

Overall, I get a mood here of loss of innocence in an American suburb that was never innocent to begin with. Something about racist attitudes shifting from open antagonism to something more quietly sinister. Literally whitewashed. I read Queequeg here to be how the residents saw some random black guy they were harassing for incredibly petty reasons, like squeezing a pomegranate (which I read literally) before deciding whether to buy it. I might be wrong about lots here. I probably got about half of the references but I really liked all of the poem. I think I got it emotionally. I might not know exactly what "Pinewood Derbies" and "Rotary potluck dinners" are but I can get what they signify.

I did wonder if the final adonic might be "Are we not happy" (for the metre) but then realised it's probably more of an ironically smug statement than a question.

Edit: I just googled "Pinewood Derbies" and "Rotary potluck dinners" and I was more or less right about both, though I thought the pinewood derby cars would be bigger and driveable, rather than models. A bit like Nemo's in his profile picture.

[Carl Copeland]

Ok, I’ve been given some clues and am back for another go.

Originally Posted by Deborah J. Shore

Interesting to see a Sapphic here! … Congratulations for modernizing the meter.

I have a mental block on Sapphics—never recognize them until someone points it out. I do find them delightfully done here, and it immediately made me feel more at home in the poem.

I’m reassured that other readers floundered in the whirl of references almost as much as I did. Thanks to Mark for identifying Valerie and Vivian and especially the Captain’s Tower:

The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody’s shouting
“Which Side Are You On?”
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain’s tower

Originally Posted by Glenn Wright

The anti-social character whose behavior would have merited a 911 call a generation ago is now a typical MAGA Republican.

Yeah, that’s how I now understand the cannibal Queequeg. I like to think the older generation in my family, which felt so at home in the first stanza, would have jumped ship in the latter ones.

Originally Posted by Deborah J. Shore

if I’m convinced that the poet’s vision and reasoning is clear, I’m more likely to press in enough over time to get some of what I missed

I’m enjoying the process of pressing in and, with help from the audience, getting a slightly sharper focus with each reading, but I’d never have had the patience outside the Sphere. Here—with the charm of the meter to compensate for what remains obscure—I’ll be back for more.

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Deborah J. Shore

The first line feels really abstract. I guess the speaker is indicating that even as today is different than the past, the future will be different yet.

I take this to mean the prosperous tomorrow that was promised yesterday, hence the “endless excuse” for why it has failed to materialize and the subliminal rage at that failure.

Originally Posted by Glenn Wright

the Teenage Patrolmen stumped me

Teen Trump vigilantes?

[Rick Mullin]

Hi Deborah,

I will start with responding to you and get to Carl lower.

First—welcome to Eratosphere. Yours would actually qualify as a ~~Deep End~~ critique, which is marvelous. Twice, I think, I risked permanent expulsion from Eratosphere by suggesting we shut the Deep End down because nobody was really digging in. I hope we can revive the spirit of the thread, despite its being established by a clique of not a cabal.


You’ve given me a lot to think about for possible revisions.

Regarding Saphhic stanzas, … I love the form. I’ve learned they are best deployed in poems that qualify as love or devotional poems. This one might be an example of the latter. The voice of the repeated hendecasyllabics also lends itself to a humorous haughtiness, and there may be a little of that in this poem. I don’t find it particularly difficult writing Sapphics in contemporary English—it’s a Greek form, isn’t it? There are many found hendecasyllabics in this world, for example this credit line at the end of an episode of the Sopranos: Special thanks to Hooters of Wayne, New Jersey.


I’m glad that “Polaroid April sunshine” brings up a misty image. Yes, the first stanza is fairly straight forward, though the adonic is a bit cryptic. Perhaps notebooks that amount to accounting ledgers.

I tend to be somewhat defensive in a first round here, so I’m likely to contest a few things as we go along. I also revise, sometimes drastically in subsequent rounds when they occur, so please stick with me despite whatever pushback.

At a high level (I do hate spelling out intent, but sometimes it’s necessary in responding to critique) this poem is about the banality of the American Dream and its equivalent elsewhere, and the outcome when a person of color (in this case a heavily tattooed individual) disrupts the banality. It’s interesting that Mark reads the hero as a person of color as in not white. That is a legitimate reading at some level.

I think the second stanza is navigable on an objective level. That first line is not really all that abstract following the premise of the first stanza and goes toward defining that first stanza as a promise unkept. You seem to actually get it given your reaction.

There are various cultural and literary references in the poem. The squeezing of the pomegranate is meant to be just that—the man is harassed (by police is the suggestion in stanza four) as he handles the merchandise. The sexual reference is unavoidable, however. I am referring primarily to a sensual experience. I’m sure I was thinking of Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California” writing this line. The person who calls the police, of course, has misinterpreted the squeeze, so, yes, harassment. Above all, there is no metaphor intended. Tattoo Man is squeezing fruit.

[Note that I position the person who called the police as the reader or recipient of the poem….]

One problem with the poem stands may be ambiguity regarding the man being a heavily (entirely) tattooed person. I’m relying on the title and the mentionof Queequeg in defining things. I think of the introduction to Queequeg in Moby Dick: a frightening looking person walking into Ishmael’s room and getting in bed with him. He is heavily tattooed. “doling infinite cowboy” is a moment at which I am rolling with a kind of wannabeat® Sapphics. Doling infinite cowboy is kinda Kerouac—in keeping with currents that undercut the complacency of the perceived America decades back and boosting the Ginsberg [/i]possibility in the supermarket (Jack’s).

Most of this is heavily subjective and pertains to my reading of the stanza more than to my intent in writing it. But, again, I think there is enough objectivity in the “narrative” of the stanza to anchor a reader in all the subjective space alotted.

Tattoo man is meant to be seen as eliminated—run out of town, perhaps. The initial title of my poem is “Death of Tattoo Man”. But it’s not a poem about his death. Anyway, he is eliminated and the white Republican enclave is left in full effect. The colors of the heavy tattooing or the flesh itself resolve to white.

“I’m imagining some anti-women’s-lib sort of complainer possibly?” you say. This seems to me a stretch. All is fair, but I think this is brought to the poem rather than found and may destract. Yes, “Show me a man” means show me someone of extraordinary quality. A Byronic hero. Rooster Cogburn. Well, we had him, but his gone…. “or bring him back,…”

Mark, not surprisingly, nailed the Captain’s Tower reference! Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row” has Ezra Pound and T S Eliot fighting in the captain’s tower. See the lyrics Carl posted below. BUT, I don’t think I need the reader to get that. I like the Moby Dickish interpretation you suggest. The captain’s tower, I think, generally suggest a hub of control. As for Valerie and Vivian, these are the names of Eliot’s two wives. His first, Vivian, a “disruptive” individual, is followed by Valerie, an ordering and orderly individual. As it turns out, Dylan’s “Too Much of Nothing” refers to V and V:

Say hello to Valerie
Say hello to Vivian
Give her all my salary
On the waters of oblivion.

(Peter Paul and Mary recorded a cover of the song and, likely not getting the reference, changed Vivian to Marion. Dylan was livid)

Again, I am hoping to limn a portrait of turmoil under the surface—good turmoil that, once it surfaces has got to be got by the status quo. Trick the tray may be familiar to some as “Tricky Tray”, an attempt to back off whatever racist slur is associated with the term “Chinese Auction”, that ubiquitous church basement stalwart. An ironic attempt! ~,:^) Anyway, a suggestion of the banal and the cracks in it. I’m hoping that the final line states exactly where the white Republican enclave stands as it puts out the lights that might save it. I do intend it to be a statement as opposed to a question, thus no question mark.

So much for my first round push-backiness and perhaps overly-detailed expression intent! I really appreciate you digging in. It got me thinking about how others are reading the poem, and certainly offers guidance in regard to digesting all the other input—and I’m glad to see what’s followed your critique.

Lastly, as far as the the poet’s clarity of vision and reasoning go, I refer to George Inness's edict that knowledge must bow to spirit, which is to say that vision trumps reason ~,:^) Nonetheless, I’m fairly convinced that I am coursing through something like a logical narrative with a volta (I usually do well avoiding words like “or” in nailing the difficult double trochees at the line ends in Sapphics—here I chose “or” with discrtion!) And I am intentionally leaving things open to interpretation and pleasurable confusion. There are a lot of good poets and critics here that never comment on my work ~,:^)

I get that you see qualities here, but that it’s not quite there for you. I anticipate a revision and I hope you’ll indulge me after all of this ^^ by going over that version as well.

Thank you, thank you.




Hi Glen

I live for glimmers of light! I really went over whole thing at length above. My intent is to show the destructive quality of what is considered a civil sense of community. I don’t pick up on what you see as simmering tribal grievance. I read something more like ennui suffered, perhaps inevitably, by people unfamiliar with the word.


This I don’t think is there: The anti-social character whose behavior would have merited a 911 call a generation ago is now a typical MAGA Republican. I’m intending to describe a person who challenges the status quo, thus causing a kind of fear response among the general pouplation. He’s set upon and ousted or somehow gone. I’m not commenting on contemporary politics and have no thought of Trump in writing or reading this.

Very glad to read that Queequeg registers as Tattoo Man. It’s kind of key to understanding the poem. That last stanza is admittedly cryptic, employing the literary/pop culture reference described above. Again, I don’t think that a reader needs to catch the obscure Dylan/Eliot hooks to get what is needed here. Things flatten out, all noise eliminated. “Aren’t we happy.” I hope what I’ve written in my response to Deborah will provide some help.


Mark,

First an important clarification. Nemo is operating a Soapbox Derby vehicle. Pinewood and Soapbox derby are the be all and end all of Cub Scout culture in the US. But remember: Scouting is a British import here. Perhaps we have taken too much to heart.

I really thought of you when I challenged myself assto whether the Captain’s Tower and Valerie and Vivian would be taken up by readers. How do you think bringing them in works here—is it a distraction? I can tell you that this started as an idea for a poem in which Valerie and Viv show up to characterize something wrong in suburbia. The prompt of Tattoo Man, who was real, followed later.

This is encouraging: Overall, I get a mood here of loss of innocence in an American suburb that was never innocent to begin with. Something about racist attitudes shifting from open antagonism to something more quietly sinister. Literally whitewashed.

Interesting that you are reading the man as a random black guy. Caldwell is real too, and in the Apartheid mid 20th century in northern New Jersey, it was very much the case that people were pulled over in Caldwell as a result of racial profiling. I think Dylan says something along these lines regarding Paterson. All to say, I’m OK with your seeing a random black guy here.


Not sure how much Google you gave to the Rotary club—it’s basically a conservative business owner’s franchise in every suburban town in America. They meet on Tuesday in a room at the Clover Leaf Tavern. That kind of thing.

Yes, the close is an ironically smug statement as opposed to the apparent question. As for meter, I think it works as I have it, if “aren’t” is, as it is colloquially in Caldwell, pronounced as a two-syllable word.


I’m glad that you in your reading, sometimes squeezing a pomegranate is squeezing a pomegranate. Of course I like that you got it emotionally.


Thanks for coming back Carl,


I love Sapphics. The incantational quality of a pile of hendecasyllabics resolving in an adonic that can be a kind of punchline can’t be beat in unrhymed poetry. I’m glad that “the charm of the meter” compensated for obscurity and may keep a reader at it.

Here’s what to look for in identifying the form—four longish lines followed by a shortish. Of course, writers take a lot of liberties. I think the longish/shortish criterion is the bottom line.

I kind of recoil from the imposed MAGA interpretation of the hoi polloi here, as noted to Glen. It’s not called for in the text, really, and tends to sidetrack both Tattoo Man and the suburbanites, really mischaracterizing the latter. MAGAs are extremists and loony. If anything they are cooler than the hoi polloi! I want to believe they don’t show up here at all, but perhaps their presence is inevitable (chills running down my spine).


I know what you mean saying that if this were not a poem posted at Eratosphere, you’d not take the time for it. A poem like this is asking a lot of the reader. I don’t think in terms of going for the broadest audience or keeping out the riff raff or any of that shit. I guess my philosophy regarding the poet is that the he or she finds his or her audience or doesn’t. I also find that I need to be much more patient when I am reading poetry than I am when I do anything generally. So…

As for the two points in you last comment:

A) Yes!
B) No!


The teenage patrolmen are meant to harken back a bit to Pinewood Derbies, I guess. Bringing ‘em into the system young. I want the world to take a break from Trump by reading this poem. ~,:^)



Folks! Thanks so much for digging in, as appropriate in ~~The Deep End~~. I enjoyed making a deep response, characteristically defensive and gabbily explanatory at this point. There will be blood (rewrite?) in the second round if I am graced with one.

RM

[Mark McDonnell]

Interesting that you are reading the man as a random black guy.

Hey Rick,

To be clear, I got the reference to the Moby Dick character. But yes, I pictured an ordinary person. What I was saying is that the locals see him in the the way that Ishmael might initially view Queequeg: frightening, exotic, threatening. In the world of the poem is he someone actually covered in tattoos? Interesting.

[Rick Mullin]

Hi Mark,

Yes. Covered, including his entire face.


Sorry about the italics, folks. I can't get the edit function to work on my laptop.

RM