So now we have a poem written by John Ashbery, published much later 1981 later than Some Trees which was very early and this was more typical of Ashbery. It's confusing, it's very post modern in certain ways, we're going to talk about that. It doesn't quite, it really doesn't say what it wants to say. It starts over, it's difficult, I guess we would say. So, let's talk about the pronouns, how do they work? Trust me, the world is run on a shoestring, they have no time to return the calls in hell. Who's they? Speculate, we don't know, right? >> There's a couple of different days- >> [COUGH] >> That appear. And it could be the same day or it could be a different day each time. >> Right. >> They have no time to return the calls we have. They will tell you what we've all known for years. >> Mm-hm. >> Once they made the great trip to California. There's a couple of different- >> Lots of different they's. Let's take two of those they's, and compare them. The first one is, trust me, the world is run on a shoestring, they have no time to return the calls in hell and pay dearly for those wasted minutes. Who could the they there be? >> I mean, obviously there's a bunch of phone operators in hell, so. >> It's a hellish phone operation system, they're not returning your calls. What are you asking them, why are you calling hell, Max? In a poem called Hard Times. What do you have to say to hell? Who in hell can help you? >> Yeah, we're wondering what the hell is going on? >> [LAUGH] >> What the hell is going on? [LAUGH] >> But there's nothing worse than being in hard times and calling for help to hell, and having hell not return your calls. The ultimate frustration. So they would be presumably those who manage the call system in hell. Okay, before we get to the second they, let's go back to the first line. Trust me, the world is run on a shoestring. What does that mean the world is run on a shoestring? >> Doesn't have enough resources, it's suffering, it's not thriving. >> If we run, let's say our household is run on a shoestring, what do we mean by that? >> Times are tough. >> Times are tough. >> Hard times. >> Run on a shoestring is an idiom that refers to? >> A shoestring and a prayer. >> Yeah, it's, [CROSSTALK] there's not much going on here. >> It's held together with a shoestring and a prayer, meaning it's like, it's held together with a shoestring, which is probably not the strongest. >> In my family, we'd say Band-Aids and baling twine. Everything is held together. Okay, so the world is run on a shoestring. So what does that mean, largely? Anyone? >> It means that the whole world is just in poor shape, it doesnt have enough, it's falling apart >> It's not just this particular hard times, 1981, which was a mini-recession. The beginning of the Ronald Reagan era. It's a general statement that the world is run on a shoestring, which means what? >> It could fly apart at any second. >> Yeah, it's not really nearly as organized as you thought it is. When you were a kid, particularly you thought, my goodness this whole thing is set up. And then you realize, the more you know, the less you know and to mix the metaphor you opened the, you look under the hood, the car of the world and you realized, the thing is held together by band-aids and Valentines so the world is run on a shoe string. Trust me, says the narrator, trust the speaker. Trust me, the world is run on a shoestring. Okay, so this poem is going to try to embody that. So they have no time to return calls in hell and pay dearly. Now, later we have, they made the great trip to California. Without giving away the ending, who's the they there? Dave? >> Just America or- >> Yeah America, Americans, Americans. Did we really make the great trip to California? What does that mean? >> Well, first the gold rush- >> So that must be 1849, is it, 49, the 49ers? So we westered, we went west. We did Manifest Destiny, or we said, there's gold in them, there hills, and we went out there. And was there gold in them there hills? Not really, not for too many. All right, and we wound up in the Klondike, starving or something. And who else made the great trip to California? >> The Beats. >> Yeah, that's getting, how about before the Beats? >> Lewis and Clark? >> Lewis and Clark, how about after Lewis and Clark? >> [LAUGH] >> How about Steinbeck's characters and Woody Guthrie's characters? >> This is the great depression, not 1981 but the 1930s hard times. That's the American dream really, that's being the Jones and getting Ma and Pa and Grandpa and getting in the Jalopy and driving out to California for the hope of jobs, and gold and milk and honey. And of course California is a nice place, but it's the American Dream. And the American Dream doesn't quite work out. So that they, is, I don't know how to grammar of this, that they refers to the American people. >> Doesn't even need to be American if you really- >> Or anybody who dreams, although I think this is a very American poem. >> Could be immigrants who come to California from Japan or China or Korea. >> Mm-hm. >> Could be them, too. >> So, there is a word that refers, it's not a really accurate word, but it's a nice, it's a Greekish word, when you use it, people are impressed. To refer to Ashbery's technique of shifting pronouns, of giving you pronouns you don't understand, and the word is polyptoton, P-O-L-Y-P-T-O-T-O-N, it's not quite defined that way but we use it that way. So you get a they, what are some of the other pronouns you don't understand? >> It. >> It. >> He. >> What? >> He. >> He? Where's he? >> He flashed a mouthful. >> Yes. The devilish figure in the third stanza who seems to be part of the team in hell, they're messing you up. >> Me. >> And me. Yeah, trust me, that's the speaker. So we, typical of Ashbery for much of his career, he's playing fast and loose with pronouns. Now what do you say of a kind of writing that doesn't explain the pronoun referendum? What do you say of that writing, if you're a conventional reader that's trying to understand something. If you're reading a news paper article and it begins he fired him. >> There is no antecedent for this pronoun. >> There is no antecedent. >> It's abstract. >> You're sounding rather crusty. >> [SOUND] >> [LAUGH] So what is he saying? Is Ashbery saying something through his polyptoton? >> [CROSSTALK] >> Go ahead. >> Just maybe it becomes hard to identify and keep relationships straight. If the pronouns. >> And what could be possibly intentional about that given that these are hard times? And that the world is running on a shoestring? >> That roles often get switched, power dynamics change. Even maybe the trust me at the beginning is meant ironically or sort of cynically. >> Don't trust me, yeah. >> Yeah. >> And specific references and specific referential language may no longer apply. >> When the system falls apart, and here, it's the economic system, although I don't think John Ashbery has a particular interest in the failures of the economy. He's not a criticizer of capitalism overtly. But when the system in general falls apart, cause and effect are confused. Who's the agent of ill-effect? It's not clear. We ourselves may be it. When they don't return your calls in hell, that's really hellish. This is postmodernity of the scary kind. Somewhere in the future, it will filter down through all the proceedings. What's it? We don't know, but I'm asking you to guess. Dave? >> I really don't know but I feel like it is a message, because have the time to return calls in hell. When you call somebody, you call and leave a message perhaps. So the message will go through hell. >> Good, so it almost refers to the messages, nice. Somewhere in the future, it will. I can't get my calls returned from hell. But somewhere in the future, the thing I was trying to get, the message I was trying to receive, the communication I was trying to get clear, will filter down through proceedings. What kind of word, Anna, is proceedings in this context? >> Kind of implies sort of systematic or kind of procedural- >> Bureaucratic, legalistic. >> Bureaucratic protocol. >> More postmodernity, this is Kafka, really, although he's modern. This is Kafka, this is a Kafkaesque situation, even down to the guy with the aluminium teeth. In the future, it will filter down through the proceedings. But by then, it'll be too late. Too late for what? >> Too late for that answer, or that solution to be applicable anymore. >> Right, the festive ambience will linger on, but it won't matter. We'll still be celebrating the hooray, the message has arrived, America is saved. Our economic system is secure. Well, the whole thing has fallen apart. So we're having a party but it doesn't really matter. More or less succinctly, they will tell you what we've all known for years. They, being again, Maurice? >> In this case, maybe poets. I was thinking that, it seems rather pessimistic or cynical in tone. So maybe he's commenting on the inadequacy of the message to actual work actual change. So if you're the poem- >> Yeah, I think I like what you're saying. I'm not sure about the poets. I think they are the promulgators of this mixed message or this mode of communication. >> The ones who are the ones who set the proceedings, who set the system. >> The power structure. >> More or less succinctly, the power structure, nice. More or less succinctly, they will tell you what we've all known for years. And what is it that they tell you, since Dave, you were already going in that direction? >> Just the power structure exists to keep the power structure. >> Which is a frightening self-referential answer. The answer is, the reason things are this way is that, we've set them up to be this way. Whatever twists around it, the message's decoration can never be looked at as something isolated in part. Get it? That's a funny thing for a speaker to say in a poem that makes no sense. Get it? What's the gist of that Allie, when you see that, get it? >> Well the gist is that, no we don't necessarily. >> No, we don't get it. We didn't get the message and we don't get what you mean about the message. And, and this weird and, an and that doesn't conjoin, right. An and that sets up a pair of taxes, so a non sequitur, and he flashed, he, this- >> I don't think it's a non sequitur, I actually, when I read this, I thought that, starting with trust me, that's what the he with the mouth full of aluminum teeth, he's been saying this all along. >> My goodness. The speaker is devilish. And he flashed a mouth. Well, that would work with flip the time because me turns into a he. And you're reading. And he flashed a mouthful of aluminum teeth there. What image is that? Molly, can you describe that image? Is that a friendly thing? >> No, it's sort of a gnashing of terrible teeth. >> That shine in the dark. Aluminum teeth. >> In the James Bond movie with Jaws. >> Yeah, there's a James Bond villain type I see. And he flashed a mouth full of aluminum teeth there in the darkness to tell what, Max? To tell, however it gets down, that it does, at last. >> This message that's filtering through all the proceedings. He's saying that yeah, it eventually comes but it's such a sinister look about him that it becomes sort of a, it's not hopeful, it's dark, it's sinister. >> What's the distinction he's making between, however it gets down that it does? What's the distinction on one hand and on the other? >> Makes me feel like a big kind of secret of the universe is like a hand-me-down. That it goes from person to person and it gets passed off until, eventually, it comes to you and you get the big secret of the universe. And the secret is there is a secret. >> The secret is that it arrives secretly, all right. Whatever way, disregarding the proceedings by which it gets there, it does. And disregarding what it says, the content of the message is empty, often times in Ashbery. It arrives late, and you open it up, and there's no content. It's the fact that the message arrived that was important. We didn't get the message, get it? No, we didn't get it. And now, we get this stanza about America, about the American Dream. About Western, about Manifest Destiny, about the Wizard of Oz frankly, about the Grapes of Wrath, about California as the place to go. The Beverly Hillbillies, why not throw them in here? But I really think that it's, the depression era Wizard of Oz story which is that, The dreams are always where you aren't right now. Once they made the great trip to California and came out of it flushed. Emily, what does that mean, they came out of it flushed? >> Rich in gold, struck gold and that sort of American genesis lore. >> They made it. They made it. They made the great trip to California, they westered and came out to the flush. And now what? And now what Molly? And now what? Everyday we'll have to dispel the notion of being like all the others. What does that mean? >> Now there's just a sort of monogamy, I guess once you have that success, there's nothing else that can ever excite you again. >> Yep, okay, keep going, anybody. >> Or maybe it's just the disillusion, the disappointment because they went to California and actually didn't all find gold, so that dream was the thing that's lost and that ties into the pessimist. >> What's it feel like to have to dispel the notion that you're like everybody else? I mean. >> It already implies a certain amount of doubt, I think. >> Mm-hm. >> So, already from the beginning, It's a kind of hopeless task. >> And of course, it's an effort to distinguish yourself and then to recognize you're part of some larger symbolic migration. In time, it gets to stand with the wind, but by then, the night has closed off, what could that possibly mean? It's a beautiful line, classic Ashbery line. What does it mean? What's it, Max? In time, it gets to stand with the wind, it's not clear, or is it? >> It's not clear and it's, going back to the few it's that we've seen already, the get it. But now that he's set up this sort of second version of things, a second story. >> Starts again, once, as in Once Upon A Time. So he's almost starting over. >> Sure, yeah. So the it then gets even more complicated, we don't know if he's referring back to this message that's trickling down or if it's rather this other version of events that's more sort of depression era, gold rush story [CROSSTALK] across the country. >> Well if individuality, right, it's seeking your fortune. Seeking the American Dream is something you think of as something you do as an individual. And then you realize that you're part of an ideological pattern, a pattern that's already set up by the proceedings. And you'd do what everybody else does and you only get what everybody else gets, you don't get any particularly more or less. And then it, that individuality that you saw in time, it gets to stand with the wind. What if it is the notion of being different from all the others? In time, it gets to stand with the wind. You can do it, you can rise, but by then, it's too late. This poem is about the American message that seems to me, that the import of living the American dream over participating in the American economy. The message is always that it's going to occur to you what it means, too late to be of any significance. So it's a difficult poem, why does it have to be so difficult? >> because being individual isn't easy. >> Okay, so it's dealing with a concept that's hard. And when I was in sixth grade, back in the days when they actually taught us individuality is important, we learned individuality as an American idea, it was presented to me in a very simple way, but it's actually a very complicated process. Anybody else? Why does it have to be so difficult? Ashbery, this is a classic Ashbery poem. Where people say, you read this in the New Yorker. I don't know if this was published in the New Yorker. Read this in the New Yorker and you say, boy, another incomprehensible poem by John Ashbery, why? >> Well, what they have known, that they will tell you, that they have known for all of these years, is that the power of this climate is only to conserve itself. And so the climate is in itself incomprehensible. So then the poem- >> The incomprehensibility of the poem- >> In order to best express that incomprehensibility of the poem, also has to be pretty incomprehensible. >> Dave, you seem to think that's right? >> I do, I think maybe it's the message, the secret, that we all try to be individual, but we're all doing it at the same time. And then that's the message that's difficult like the poem. >> If the world is run on a shoestring, I'm not sure that the perfect way, I'm going to say something opinionated here. I'm not sure that the perfect, coherent, formalistic, Robert Frost poem is the one that I want to convey for me, the shoestringness of the world. I think in some ways, Ashbery is one of those poets that speaks the shoestringness of this and also the belatedness of the answers. This poem is really about hard times and it ain't easy. The poem ain't easy, any more than hard times are.
