Up at 6 a.m. -- here's a poem

Light from Other Rooms

The glow of electric light
fills in the house shadow’s
as you wander from room to room
a walking midnight ghost upon
the floor
drifting through carpeted corridors
of our suburban brickhouse manor
I lie upon the mattress stiff and flat
listening for the noise of the electric light
not the click of the switch
the turning of the light-tide
but another sound, the soft wash
of electric-light particle waves
splashing rhythmically upon the beach
of our own mutual undoing
digging watery trenches in the
vanilla sand until the
flick of the switch when you leave the hall
in cloaking darkness a ghostly
puddle in the hallway from where
the light has fallen down, its energy
drained, its illuminated promise vanishing
into the ordinary gray darkness.

On Turning 40

I turn 40 in January. I'm certainly not as troubled about turning 40 as I was about turning 30, having given up a lot of delusions since then, but I can't say I like it either. Just a few years ago, I was a part of the venerated 18-35 advertising "youth" demographic, the generation everyone wants to cater to or be a part of; in just a few months, I'll be in the legally protected, "over 40" demographic that gets good insurance rates and discounts on root canals. Right now, I'm in the dreaded "in between."

Just for kicks, here's a list of writers who died before or just after turning 40: Flannery O'Connor, Stephen Crane, Jack London, Edgar Allan Poe, and Sylvia Plath. I guess it's not safe to a be a naturalist of a gothicist.

Why can't a story just be a story?

The other day in class, I was giving my students an introduction to the Tennessee Williams's play "Streetcar Named Desire." I started talking about how a streetcar is essentially a conveyance that goes in circles, symbolically implying the journey that goes round and round but never gets anywhere. Naturally, I said, this ties in symbolically with the name of the streetcar ("Desire") and how the desire and passion of these people's lives keeps them on this circular journey that goes through "Cemeteries" and ends at "Elysian Fields."

One of my students interrupted and asked, "But how can you say it means all this when he could have just named the streetcar 'Desire' because that was the name of the streetcar in the neighborhood?"

I should be used to questions like this from students, who always want to know why we have to "read so much" into plays, poems, and stories. But I sort of lost my patience, admittedly without losing my smile, and responded, "Because it's never just what it is. Tennessee Williams is a playwright interested in deeper connections. His work, like all literature, is interesting because it works out of these traditions and is rich with metaphor, symbolism, and allusion. Williams isn't writing journalism, after all."

Is that a good enough answer? Maybe not. It is frustrating, when you love literature, to answer these types of questions from people who believe a story should just be enjoyed and quickly forgotten. But good stories, stories with staying power, usually do more than provide simple diversion or voyeuristic thrill.

Tennessee Williams is not known for his subtle symbolism, which is why he's a good choice for young readers just beginning to learn the value of analysis and close reading. If the streetcar isn't supposed to mean something besides just being a streetcar, why does Williams focus on it so much? Why does it keep coming up in the dialogue? ("Haven't you ridden on that streetcar?") Why not just have Blanche arrive in a taxi cab with no name at all?