John was one of those admirable pricks
Who, when in the grip of “I've lost my drive,”
Would somehow put on a plain suit and sit,
And do things—not great things, by myyyyy...
Me, in the grip of “I've lost my drive”—
Just wheel-spin wastes the day: I touch
my dark work with one finger,
then eat, pace, and temple rub hours away.
And for what?
Torture out a dream better or brighter,
More complex than the bullshit John does?
I never—NOT ONCE—opened Moby Dick!
But I read Stephen King.
Why?
Be-
cause...
Because, my God, his name is on the whole fucking shelf.
While Melville's got his ONE EPIC THING.
And honestly, I'm not so brilliant, but.
I do have a million half-dreams every day.
And if I could just rush out a few, you know what?
I could build up a half-Tower of dreams that way.
And alphabetically? 'John Doe's like me come before
'Stephen King | Stephen King | Stephen
King | Stephen King | Stephen
King | Stephen King |
Stephen King's...
Maybe I am a little bit of a John and maybe in some moments of “I’ve lost my drive,” I am like you. With the exhausting demands of our society, particularly in regards to work, we are taught to be like John and continue on as normal, but I think it is completely natural to need to relax and escape the draining, monotony of our day-to-day lives. Using Joseph Merrick in the image here made me think of how we are shamed and looked at differently for going against the socially acceptable life path, in the same way. Knowing he was often mistakenly called John I also thought about how someone like me can switch between these two mindsets. In a way, he was both a John who literally had to always sit up and chose to use his unique appearance to support himself, but he was destined to live an unconventional life because of his deformities.
ReplyDeleteYour thoughts about Melville and King remind me of my own because I too knew Moby Dick as Melville's infamously boring book. Eventually, I stopped to consider why I never made my own conclusion about a book that is so well known, so despite my local library's shelves also being filled with King’s books, I picked up Moby Dick. I was pleasantly surprised to find perspectives on prevalent social issues embodied in the diversity of the characters onboard; in a time where racial injustice, the climate crisis, economic inequality, and LGBTQ+ acceptance are at the forefront of politics I saw much potential for valuable contemporary analysis on the differences—and consequential struggles—that compose our communities and commonly divide us.
I also see similarities between King, who is known as a horror writer to most but actually has many non-macabre stories, and Melville with “his ONE EPIC THING” who actually wrote about many subjects beyond that, including psychological novels, like Pierre (my personal favorite). Circling back to Merrick who also was known for one thing, but as you show in the image paired with this poem, he was also a poet and undoubtedly a much more complex person. Moby Dick taught me a very important lesson about inquiry and forming your own opinion instead of following the masses or going along with what's popular, especially knowing that Starbucks, the coffee chain, is the misconstrued remnant of such a complex, meaningful epic(no pun intended).
Lol, I feel like you are gently calling me out for over-simplifying/exaggerating the distinction between Melville and King. And that's totally fair: they're useful as stereotypes and archetypes, but that's not to say those simplified images ARE them. It's just an idea about them, that I find useful when I need to beat my own perfectionism out of my paralyzed hands and. Just. Express. Something. to keep that channel open & flowing.
DeleteWhat drew me to this poem was the first sentence, and the usage of the word “prick” which I found actually very refreshing to see because I feel like a lot of times poems are known to use hard and “fancy” language so seeing this everyday curse word drew me to continue reading and I was transported. The first thought that popped into my head when I finished reading this was the rat race and how society, especially in the United States, is so focused on capitalism and making money and does not focus on creativity. I feel like this was really made apparent to me when the contrast between Herman Melville and Stephen King was made. Moby Dick is one of the best books in the literary world, and yet, like stated in the poem, people like to focus more on Stephen King. This, to me, really shows how focused people are with creating and consuming. And Stephen King is applauded for writing all of these books, not to say that his books are not good, but oftentimes he is put on a pedestal for having written tons and tons of books that are pretty good, but not excellent. By creating this type of society, which is focused only on creating more and more, and then having consumers buy it all, even if they do not consume it all, creates this sense of inferiority in artists who are trying to make one masterpiece in their lifetime. I believe that the constant push of American society to be a good worker, to create, to not take vacations, to be dedicated to their work and not their family, to want to make millions of dollars, to have a “good” education at an Ivy league school, and to always want more is destructing the creative side of our society and is pushing people to focus on the wrong thing.
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