I`ll tell you in five minutes (or five years)
Posted: 13 November 2006
Word Count: 202
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We talk about buying a new television,
"But I want one now," she says.
So do I, once the mattress is paid for.
God Save American Express and 0% APR for 16 months!
How owing money to a company
inspires me to make money!
My obedience owes up.
They have the power to stop lending grace,
to stop offering Airline Miles.
I feel I'm paying homage to an ever-vengeful diety,
but at least they acknowledge me with a letter each month,
telling me how much I will have to work.
Yesterday I found my first grey hair.
Somehow the silver flake weaved its way from the roots
and grew as long as the dirt brown rest of the lot
without me noticing,
like the overnight growth of a dandelion
springing up from the dirt.
Today I searched my brow for the same silver strand,
but he had hidden, jumped ship, perhaps assailed to walk the plank
by the remaining troops.
But if tomorrow I find the grey, silver thread, stuck like grafitti to the sink faucet, or elsewhere, then I know the warning of a hair is worth heeding. And although he might have been the first, others are sure to follow.
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 Brian Aird at 08:44 on 13 November 2006
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As we meander through what seems like trivial events like buying a new bed/tv and gray hair (sorry but I have too many to care) we sense the tread mill of daily life relentlessly counting out time. But is there more to it?
I noted the masculine pronoun attached to the gray hair and wondered also if there wasn't a little fun going on here - like a ‘dandelion or a mushroom’ and ‘more to follow’ had me wondering if the ‘silver thread’ had a deeper meaning. Perhaps you’ll tell us in a while….
I'd say it might be worth making us guess the Credit Card connection by removing explicit references to 'credit card' and 'American Express' - which leaves 'express trip to debt' balanced with the hinted but not explained 'Greek people talking... Greek'.
Brian
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 Souchong at 00:25 on 14 November 2006
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this is beautifully done. there are 'firsts' in it - first credit card, first grey hair. and the purchase of a mattress and proposed purchase of a new television suggest setting up house or at least moving .. to a new city or maybe even a new country.
the regret is equally gracefully marked - the potential for a slide into debt and worry and age and a warning against.
one grey hair eh. plenty more to come etc.. tellingly portrayed. u could use less words but somehow for this i enjoy the luxury.
best wishes
souchong
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 James Graham at 19:00 on 14 November 2006
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Hi, Jordan - maybe you could post the original again below your new version, for comparison. Perhaps you never want the original to see the light of day again! - but I'd say that would be a bit premature. I certainly like the original better, unless maybe your revision will start to grow on me. What follows is mainly a comment on the original, though as I write I'm starting to look at the revision too.
I have a thing about personal poetry sometimes failing to communicate - but this does communicate, instantly. It's partly the immediacy of the 'snapshot', in the first few lines, of sunlight, fog, and people speaking Greek. It's partly also because you choose the 'vehicle' of the first grey hair to crystallise the meaning of the moment that the poem captures. It's one of those moments in life when several things seem to collide - in this case, the 'work-life balance' becoming very unbalanced; the pressures of being a consumer; and intimations of mortality.
The 'first grey hair' is a good vehicle, and communicates well, because it's so familiar and universally recognised. The flip side of that familiarity is that it could easily become a cliché, but that doesn't happen here because you make very appealing, slightly self-deprecating humour out of it. I mean especially 'grow as long as the dirt brown rest of the lot' (excellent line), 'dandelion or mushroom', and the idea of the poor thing taking the plunge in despair (and others following, like lemmings).
In the revision you've lost the image of sun/fog/Greek people. Another feature of the original that I found very telling was the jump between these two lines:
How owing money inspires me to make money!
And I think yesterday morning I found my first grey hair |
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There are so many intermediate, unstated thoughts between the two lines that I think they should stay as they are. It's also like a change of key, a modulation. I like the way the poem after that goes on to the end about the grey hair; I think I felt that the hair and all it signifies is the true subject of the poem. In the revision maybe it still is, but you lose that very effective 'modulation' between, on the one hand, 21st century consumer credit, and the drive to work more and more, and on the other hand the timeless first grey hair - disconcertingly found by still-young people in ages long before our own.
Those are some of the reasons why I like the poem better as it was. The first half of the revision seems, in places, too mundane - starting off with the new TV and the mattress, then such things as 0% APR and airline miles.
The idea of the grey hair being 'assailed to walk the plank' by the other hairs seems a little strained.
The only change I'd suggest in the original would be to leave out 'American Express' as everybody knows American Express well enough to get it from the line 'An Express trip to debt'.
Just one more thing (I know this is a massive comment) - I'm sure you have a good reason for putting the last section in prose, but I find myself wanting to versify it. It could be put into free verse without changing the wording very much. Why prose?
James.
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Souchong at 22:35 on 16 November 2006
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have to say - i liked the orig better too. liked the visuals. they kind of grounded it.
cheers
souchong
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NinaLara at 08:47 on 17 November 2006
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I'm thinking about this - I'm finding it structually complex! I want to move the verses around ..... great to see contemporary issues like this in poetic form.
Nina
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