Second Model

Lunchtime in Vermillion

Dismal prospects for eating out in Vermillion,
so many restaurants have burned, or closed.
And I’m missing old Marge, with her little dinner,
her gravely voice and perpetual unfiltered cigarette
hanging from her lips. Her place burned, but she survived,
reopened, only to die later from old age.

So I go to our only remaining Asian eatery--
lunch buffet at Chae’s. Opens at 11:00.
Or do I sup on the finery at McDonalds?
The Big Mac and fries the TV wants you to buy.

No! I’m really making Raman at home,
except that I hate the MSG and in the end just
wind up eating a bowl of Grapenuts.

And now I’m in the Wal-Mart parking lot,
and I’m staring at an old man in a pickup
who is staring at a young man walking,
walking along with no arms, and I’m wondering
why this old man is so drawn in by the sight of something
different. Wondering why the old in this town have never left.
Wondering which of the three of us is the real freak.

With this poem I attempted to mimic the work of Frank O’Hara’s lunch poems. I did some research for this one by actually going out to Chae’s for some lunch and then driving around the town looking for more ideas.
Having the poem set in Vermillion, rather than New York City, affords one an entirely different perspective. Here, rather than the bustle of the big city, the poet is struck with the overwhelming sense of space. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that I grew up here and then went away for ten years, but for me Vermillion is imbued with a sense of loss. The poem starts out talking about Marge, an old women who had a diner that served the best calzones. Marge herself was a real character and I miss her and her wonderful food quite often. Remembering her in the poem definitely ties in with O’Hara’s habit of mentioning old friends within his poetry. I think this technique works well in this type of poem because it gives the reader a sense of what is happening in the moment. The author is reminded of past friends by being in a certain place. The poem can then be read as almost a stream of consciousness poem, a where I am now and what I am thinking type of poem.
I also used the “connected by a series of and, and, and” technique in an effort to capture the random nature of O’Hara’s lunch poems. There is no real plot or theme as much as a representation of what I did and was thinking in the moment. This technique, in keeping with O’Hara’s ideas about personism, gives the reader a look into what the author is thinking without going into as much background detail as a confessional poet might. There is a real sense of motion, a sense that life is ever changing and here’s what’s happening right now. The poem then becomes more conversational in nature.
The mention of everyday or pop culture items was also used in an effort to model O’Hara’s poems. I may have gone a little over the top here with the inclusion of McDonalds, the Big Mac and Wal-Mart, but I really like looking at these references. If everything is art, and I believe that to be true, then the poet must not make distinctions between what is valuable and what is not. Nature is beautiful, but we all probably spend more time in Wal-Mart than out on the trail. O’Hara was interested in describing what was around him at the time and so was I. By making reference to specific times and places the reader is drawn into the poem by details to which he or she can relate. This is a poetry for the people.
In an effort to capture the enthusiasm that O’Hara was known to display I even tried to pull off an exclamation point. I would defend the use of this punctuation by saying that it marked an emphatic rejection of the overall shittiness of the McDonalds food and a desire to shun all eating establishments for a meal at home. Although perhaps not a usual thing to do, the “!” was an attempt to further model the poem after the great works of O’Hara’s lunch time poems.