Ports of Call: John Crowe Ransom's "Good Ships"

GOOD SHIPS
John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974)

Fleet ships encountering on the high seas
Who speak, and then unto the vast diverge,
Two hailed each other, poised on the loud surge
Of one of Mrs. Grundy's Tuesday teas,
Nor trimmed one sail to baffle the driving breeze.
A macaroon absorbed all her emotion;
His hue was ruddy but an effect of ocean;
They exchanged the nautical technicalities.

It was only a nothing or so until they parted.
Away they went, most certainly bound for port,
So seaworthy one felt they could not sink;
Still there was a tremor shook them, I should think,
Beautiful timbers fit for storm and sport
And unto miserly merchant hulks converted.

The phrase, “tea party,” of late, connotes a political bent, though John Crowe Ransom’s poem refers to a high-society afternoon gathering of a time gone by. Then, as now, individuals feel the burden of singlehood. Whether meeting at a bar, a party, online, or through friends, a pressure exists – real or imagined – to pair up. The couple in Ransom’s “Good Ships,” seek camaraderie, food and fun at the tea party, but do not seek each other.

Previously acquainted, these two fleet members of the fleet meet once again on the “high seas” of Mrs. Grundy’s tea party, as they “[hail] each other” at the gathering. “High” connotes the style or breeding of a tea party room or indicates the boisterous room itself. The conversation cannot be intimate, as they must contend with the “loud surge” of the other party-goers. While the party is in full swing, neither fleet-mate feels the need to “baffle the driving breeze” as each maneuvers their way from hors d’oeuvre to canapé to petit four.

The woman becomes more and more a deserted island with each bite of her absorbing macaroon. She speaks to the man, yet she appears more interested in her delicious cocoanut morsel rather than giving him her full attention. In ship shape, she wants to be left alone, privately stowing her booty. He, meanwhile, is, “ruddy but an effect of ocean,” inferring either the temperature of the crowded room causing him to flush or having found the spiked punch and pausing several times to replenish his personal vessel. A lovely turn of phrase, “exchanged the nautical technicalities” indicates the couple exchanging weather pleasantries to pass the time. How often are, “Read any good books lately?” or “Hot, isn’t it?” the only things to say in an awkward encounter? Clearly, the couple is not having an easy, breezy conversation. Why stop to chat when there are hatches to batten down?

After “only a nothing or so,” though probably an interminable amount of time for each of them, these ships are “bound for port,” or, headed home separately – each to their individual port. Steering sure and true, the ships find themselves “so seaworthy one felt they could not sink,” their hulls full of good food and drink. Their ballast allows temporary stability and control, leading toward gastrointestinal reactions as, “a tremor shook them” on their journey home. Their tremors do not seem to be tainted with regret, but rather perhaps shudders at the memory of their uncomfortable encounter.

The poem’s final line, “And unto miserly merchant hulks converted,” is a bit of a stumper. Thankfully, blog commenters came to the rescue. Pre-party, the couple are individually “fleet” and “beautiful timbers fit for storm and sport,” able to pilot through seas choppy or calm. Post-party, they are each “hulks,” or no longer seaworthy. They hoard their booty in a miserly fashion – perhaps feeling wrecked, unwieldy, and used for storage rather than voyage. There will be other afternoon teas, other ports of call. A solo rest at home is all they need.

An online biography of Ransom notes that he, “…primarily wrote short poems examining the ironic and unsentimental nature of life.” The symbolism for these two individual ships could just as easily include Mrs. Grundy’s entire tea party fleet. These two people are in no need of a date, let alone each other. They meet at a party and they move on – ships passing in the night, as it were. Mrs. Grundy is perhaps a lighthouse in the harbor for her guests. Her Tuesday home is the place where any port in a storm will do, but these particular ships have sailed.

Personification is the Fine Print of Nye’s “Eye Test”

Eye Test by Naomi Shihab Nye

The D is desperate.
The B wants to take a vacation,
live on a billboard, be broad and brave.
The E is mad at the R for upstaging him.
The little c wants to be a big C if possible,
and the P pauses long between thoughts.
How much better to be a story, story.
Can you read me?
We have to live on this white board
together like a neighborhood.
We would rather be the tail of a cloud,
one letter becoming another,
or lost in a boy’s pocket
shapeless as lint
the same boy who squints to read us
believing we convey a secret message.
Be his friend
We are so tired of meaning nothing.

Personification is the Fine Print of Nye’s Eye Test

When visiting the optometrist’s office and reading down the eye chart, a patient is almost desperate to get it right. The doctor asks a patient to read what appears as mice-type, and it is nearly impossible. The patient wiggles in the chair and bears down, willing the letters to come into focus. Clarity fades, and with it, hope. Helpless tears make blurry vision no better, and desperation takes hold. What if those letters were desperately crying out to the patient as well? That is the personification Naomi Shahib Nye explores in her poem, “Eye Test.”

The desperate “D” begins Nye’s litany of individualized letters as she allows the patient and the eye chart to connect as one. “The P pauses long between thoughts,” as would a patient attempting to utter the correct letter aloud. The initial hope that the Eye Test will result in a score of 20/20 vision causes the patient to begin carefully and patiently, being “brave and bold” as the letter B.

The patient in this poem is a young boy, who has not gone to the eye doctor as a matter of course, as an adult would, but because he has been taken there. Perhaps his grades are slipping or perhaps he is not hitting the ball off the T as he used to do well. He has something to prove: that he can see. The brutal, teasing consequences of sporting glasses is not a future he envisions for himself, yet he “squints to read us.” The letters, too, ache to speak: “Can you read me?” they cry, begging for some kind of understanding. The boy wants to understand, believing, “we convey a secret message,” though the message is another language altogether from his – blurry and incomprehensible. The italicized plea, to “Be his friend,” is a piteous, mournful call that cannot be heard.

Nye further personifies helplessness and loneliness in the line, “We have to live on this white board together like a neighborhood.” Even early in the poem, Nye suggests that, “The B wants to take a vacation,” to no avail. Days pass, patients come and go, yet the letters feel they must dwell on their wall chart, the same proximity from their fellow letters as the day before. “Shapeless as lint,” the letters feel – alone and meaningless – the bits of what used to exist as a whole. The letters dwell in their neighborhood, perhaps like the dregs of their boy-patient’s pocket – once grand objects, now fragments, waiting in vain to be pieced back together.
The poet takes, perhaps, a jab at herself, or at her craft, in the lines, “How much better to be a story, story,” and, “We are so tired of meaning nothing.” An eye chart is merely a series of letters, or, as the poem itself puts it, “one letter after another.” So, too, are words and phrases that make up the written language – but letters put together for the purpose of an eye test, and letters put together to convey meaning are worlds apart. A poem does not wish to be a “story, story” such as an article, essay, or novel. A poem is the creative art that conveys its meaning in subtle and evocative ways. Perhaps Nye gives a nod to the truth that many believe poems mean nothing. The letters that make up the words of poems, then, are tired of trying to convey their meaning day after day, reader after reader, like an Eye Test patient.

Naomi Shahib Nye takes an unremarkable object like an eye chart on the wall and turns it into something beautiful and meaningful. The letters wish to “float like the tail of a cloud,” and in their searching to be understood, form the meanings of the words they try to convey. “Can you read me?” the letters ask? We can certainly try.

Learn Your Damned Homophones

Apparently I have nothing to say, so I'll recommend another lovely site, Learn Your Damned Homophones. Enjoy!
http://learnyourdamnhomophones.com/

Apps I could do without

ABCs of Boobs - Free - a collection of facts and information about breasts. Such as, "When erect, the average nipple is slightly taller than 5 stacked quarters." (handy for trivia night)

Beer Carbs - $0.99 - Beer Carbs lets you quickly find the carb amount of over 1,000 beers. (drink your damned beer, already!)

Blood Type Forecast Pro - $0.99 - Helps you forecast possible blood type of a child or one of parents (because you need this at the singles bar and your doctor can't figure this out for you??)

Crazy Spouse Daily Log - $0.99 - Keep a log of how crazy your spouse is and you might just notice a pattern and be able to predict just when they will be "The Craziest." (sigh)

Hi, Daddy! Pregnancy Calculator - $0.99 - Want to have a sweet night with your partner but afraid of being a father? No more fear! (how about condoms?)

Instant Bellydancer Volume 2 - $7.99 - (I won't even go into the description...because I know you already bought - for way too much - Volume 1)

iSin - $1.99 - Lets you track your sins as they happen, with all the details you may want to have at your fingertips when it's time to confess (wrap it up, there are other people in line)

Office Affairs Ideas - $0.99 - Office romances can be fun and successful, but you and your colleague must be subtle about it. Here are some guidelines on how you can give the relationship a real shot, while keeping a lid on possible problems. (never let your spouse borrow your iPhone)

SexTrack - $1.99 - The built-in iPhone accelerometer measures the dynamics of your adventures in the bedroom. It is easy to use (just put your phone on the bed close to the action) and adds to the magic of being together. (no comment)

Art History Class Can Be Fun (if you try)

Write a fictional dialogue between any two aesthetic theorists, modern or historical, that we have read. They are discussing whether or not a particular work of art is beautiful. They may agree or disagree, partially or completely.

Tolstoy: Hegel, I’ve waited so long for this chat. May I call you Georg?

Hegel: Are you my wife?

Tolstoy: Not last I checked.

Hegel: Then…no, Tolstoy. Please don’t.

Tolstoy: Can I get you anything? A cup of tea…a glass of water?

Hegel: I’m dead.

Tolstoy: Right! Me too. We just seem so real!

Hegel: I’m sure some academics would say that we’re just as vital today as we were when we were alive.

Tolstoy: Do you find it strange that we’re speaking English when I speak Russian and you speak German?

Hegel: You think that’s strange…I died when you were three years old!

Tolstoy: I can’t even begin to wrap my head around that…but perhaps I’ll incorporate it into a novel soon. So. You know why I’ve called you here?

Hegel: Yes. Those little worship figures from ancient Mesopotamia…around 2500 BC, yes?

Tolstoy: Yes. Aren’t they wonderful? By the way, they say BCE now. Before the Common Era rather than Before Christ.

Hegel: Christ.

Tolstoy: I know.

Hegel: Well, before I agree that they’re “wonderful,” as you put it, let’s go with what we know. I understand that these figures were intended as prayer statues, to stand-in, perhaps, for human worshippers for the gods?

Tolstoy: That’s what we believe to be true, yes. Do you not see that the artist meant to convey to you the awe of the beholder as they gaze upon a god?

Hegel: Please. Spare me your yawn theory.

Tolstoy: (yawns)

Hegel: (yawns) Stop it!

Tolstoy: Just making my point that art is infectious. My yawn spawns your yawn – it’s the same thing.

Hegel: It is certainly not the same thing. A physical reaction like a yawn could simply indicate that you need to open a window. But I digress…we’re not here to argue about oxygen, are we?

Tolstoy: No, we’re not. I’m just saying that the emotions of the artist to the audience are tantamount to understanding and appreciating art – even these fellows.

Hegel: Oh. These are considered “art,” are they?

Tolstoy: Ah. I suppose now you’re going to tell me that “fine” art is the only art worthy of admiration?

Hegel: No, no – not at all. I think that philosophers like us have taken the idea of art philosophy and heightened it to a place higher than the art itself.

Tolstoy: How so?

Hegel: I believe I once said, in my Introduction to Aesthetics, that ‘…the philosophy of art is … a greater need in our day than it was in days when art by itself as art yielded full satisfaction’ (147).

Tolstoy: Meaning what?

Hegel: Meaning that the artist who created these creatures was in his time and we are in ours. Don’t think so hard. Look here: was the object necessary?

Tolstoy: Oh, I see! You’re saying that the artist wasn’t necessarily creating art for appreciation as an artwork, but because the statue had an intended purpose.

Hegel: Now you’re talking.

Tolstoy: Enlighten me some more.

Hegel: Try this on for size: ‘The beauty of art is beauty born of the spirit and born again, and the higher the spirit and its productions stand above nature and its phenomena, the higher too is the beauty of art above that of nature’ (136).

Tolstoy: That’s very ancient Egyptian of you, “Born of the spirit and born again.” Lah dee dah.

Hegel: Perhaps. An alleged Christian such as you should have plenty to say about multiple deities.

Tolstoy: Don’t get me started.

Hegel: I’m honestly trying to point out that you have overstepped your bounds with your theories of art and art appreciation. You’re a writer.

Tolstoy: What of it?

Hegel: I read some of your aesthetic criticism – if one can call it that – on my way here. In On Art, you say that an artist, “…must be able to express the new subject so that all may understand it. For this he must have such mastery of his craft that when working he will think as little about the rules of that craft as a man when walking thinks of the laws of motion” (175). Honestly. A simile?

Tolstoy: What’s wrong with what I said? I stand by those remarks.

Hegel: You’re simply tooting your own horn by lauding the artist. You are an artist. You’re too close to art to be able to critique it. Look at your ending salvo: “…a true work of art is the revelation (by laws beyond our grasp) of a new conception of life arising in the artist’s soul…” (176). Talk about appreciation of the ancient Egyptians – that’s certainly a summoning of the gods above to prove the greatness of the artist.

Tolstoy: Hey, we were going to talk about these prayer statues!

Hegel: Impossible. There’s no budging you. I could give my opinion all day, and you’d continue back to your point that the artist is the be-all, end-all. I’m more than happy to go back to…wherever it was you summoned me from.

Tolstoy: If you insist.

Hegel: Before I go…do you concur that you’re in no position to judge art?

Tolstoy: Absolutely not. I have opinions about a variety of subjects: literature, politics, religion. I’ll make my case against anyone, even you, Hegel.

Hegel: Yes, but will you win?
Tolstoy: It’s not about winning, it’s about expressing myself.

Hegel: Exactly. You, the artist - and your opinion that must be conveyed to the world. I just don’t buy it. Sorry.

Tolstoy: Let’s do this again some time.

Hegel: Let’s not.

Tolstoy: (yawns)

Hegel: (yawns) Stop it!

What I'd Change About Healthcare

I don't usually have a ton to say about political hotbutton issues. Sure, I have my opinions about political parties, abortion, death penalty, tea parties, speed limit, gay marriage, whatever. I simply choose to lay low and let more vocal types go about their way.
I am lucky enough to have good healthcare. I have reasonable co-pays, reasonable prescription costs - including generic options - and can be admitted to any emergency room without fear of being kicked back out again.
I have two doctor's appointments coming up - one tomorrow, one Monday. Both annual visits, and both doctors have seen me for over 10 years. I don't necessarily look forward to poking, prodding and whatnot, but that's what annual visits are for.
The painful part is the paperwork. I just printed out 7 pages of crap for one of the doctors - the one smart enough to put the forms online so you can fill them out early rather than go 20 mintues early to sit in the waiting room and fill them out there. So much of it is family history that you've written out several times before. I want blanket authority to draw a big X on the page and write, "No Change Since Last Visit," and sign at the bottom. Is that so wrong?

There's Always a Tranny

I visited my mom recently and went to church with her, as is expected. I can go through the prayers by rote and don't much have to pay attention...but I certainly can people-watch while the hour goes mind-numbingly by. One person I can't keep my eyes off of...is a tranny. I think.

Remember "Tootsie" and "Mrs. Doubtfire" and how Dustin Hoffman make really unconvincing women? Not behavior-wise, but LOOK-wise. Middle-aged, house frau-ish and just, well, something ain't right about them? This woman fits every single category: Too much make-up. Not very attractive. Hair looks like a wig. High-collars. Lots of jewelry. Low voice. Mom's tranny happens to have a low voice (I overheard her) and never sings along with the hymns. She's not very tall, and her hands and feet aren't large, but other than that - I'm certain she's got a secret.

I've been to church with the boyfriend's family a few times now...and THEY have a tranny, too!! She hands out programs before service. She's got all of the above PLUS the height, large hands and feet. ...and she's blonde. Which reminds me of the Flight of the Conchords song, "Leggy Blonde," which is about a REAL woman, but still...worth a listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7syyywL9JuM