Pantoum: The pantoum consists of a series of quatrains rhyming ABAB in which the second and fourth lines of a quatrain recur as the first and third lines in the succeeding quatrain; each quatrain introduces a new second rhyme as BCBC, CDCD. The first line of the series recurs as the last line of the closing quatrain, and third line of the poem recurs as the second line of the closing quatrain, rhyming ZAZA.
The punk era was all about fierce individuals that wanted to rebel or be separate from the profit-driven world. It was full of great music, crazy hairstyles, tattoos, and people with a fuck-it attitude. Punk, as a connotation, people were thought to be freaks, devilish, and even Goth. In the poem, The Punk Pantoum, a man asks his significant other to commit suicide with him. He believes that death would be a new song, a new life.
The couple in the poem isn’t really involved in the 'society', or at least they seem like they don't want to be connected to it. "Let's be proud to live at Eutaw Place - with rats, a severed fetlock, muscle, bone, and hooves." It's insinuated that they should be proud because they live unlike others. Ironically, they want to leave the world they believe to be unworthy enough to escape - they give the world a dark tone, when even their house has the same gloom feel. Eutaw Street in downtown Baltimore is known to be a wealthier neighborhood, but the speaker in the poem thought the opposite of elegance and the importance of money, and made it sound depressing. Both the society and his home were in despair, and even though they lived in a society that was all about drugs, sex, and money, people who were considered as 'punks' weren't always accepted - especially in a neighborhood like that.
The speaker of the poem talks about wearing "blood jewels and last weeks final bruise." They prefer to be able to hurt themselves because they're in control of the pain. Her 'final' bruise is like their final straw - if they were to kill themselves, they wouldn't have to inflict any more pain or bruise ever again. To escape from his home and society, he asks his significant other to commit suicide with him. They're 'new life' will be their 'new song' that's full of hope and no one to not accept them. He assures her that no matter what he'll "always love her and her face." Together, they'll make new tracks as they drag the white-hot razor across their throats.
How do you know that their society was all about "sex, drugs, and money"? Eutaw place is important and their is a connection with wealth in the name, but how does the next line - "with rats, a severed fetlock, muscle, bone and hooves" - fit with this image? Or does it? What is the meaning of the actual words or images (each in this line).
ReplyDeleteThe last paragraph of this poem begins to go someway. The idea about being in control is important with this connection of PUNK. Any type of revolt/revolution is done by those not in control (perhaps as a method to have some control over something). Okay, start with the third paragraph and move forward. Expand.