Ryan Smith

To Eat And To Drink And To Be Merry

Dearest long-sufferer, under my thumb,

When all of your back-breaking work is done,

Be you alive or be you dead,

I’ll grind your bones to make my bread.

Today I shall feast upon –

With little thought,

And great relish –

But please, please, if you’d only

Allow me to embellish:

Bacon, crisp and wet with fat,

Chicken eggs, flash-fried in grease,

Berries and apples, bananas, grapes,

Picked, so fresh, picked just for me,

By hand,

(Whatever I desire is mine)

Catfish, hot and fried in fat,

Caught, so fresh, caught just for me,

By hand,

Collard greens and potatoes, mashed,

A massive milkshake, chocolate please,

(I desire, therefore I have)

Steak, moist and trimmed with fat,

A spinach and mushroom and walnut salad,

Made, so fresh, made just for me,

By hand,

A pear or peach or pumpkin pie

(Whatever I desire is mine)

But you, my Brother,

Your food is clay,

And dirt your drink.

Trash your home, your water, meat.

A filthy river brings no relief.

Sister, you live in darkness,

But are scorched by heat,

And, Mother, by my apathy.

Father, you are hungry, naked, sick.

Bound by blood,

But a stranger.

Not my neighbor.

Not even my enemy.

Flyraped, worminfested,

Rotting alive with a mouthful of dust.

Of skin and bones and heart and will,

I eat until I have my fill.

Revision Account

            “To Eat…” was an original construction for the class. I occasionally write poetry on my own, though I have never really considered myself very good. I write poetry – does this make me a poet? I have always been hesitant to use the term.

My idea for the poem came, as they sometimes do, from a fairly dark train of thought. I have been dealing with a certain guilt recently; not guilt for anything I have actively done, but for passive crimes. I was thinking about how good I have it here, in the United States, in my middle-class safe-haven. If I want something, within reason, I can acquire (or eat) it. I also thought about those in much more severe situations: the poor, starving, naked, etc. people I sometimes see on television, living in garbage or on the streets in third world countries; America certainly is not free of this but the scale of poverty is dramatically reduced. I believe I simply wanted to deal with my own guilt, and perhaps brings others to the same guilt; not, hopefully, to shame them, but to provoke thought and, ideally, action of some kind. Almost certainly the poem will not succeed in doing so, thus, the expression of this my own guilt is the ultimate intent and birthplace of the poem.

I did a draft exchange with Naomi Gonzales, Alicia Costello, and Jeff Derrickson. I have

known all three reviewers previously, through other UHCL literature classes. Alicia is an aspiring poet, I believe, making her an obvious choice. I mostly received positive responses to the poem, although there was limited confusion with some of the grammar and general meaning.

As to the suggestions that actually changed the poem itself, Naomi helped with a spelling error - “braking” to “breaking.” She also suggested using commas or other punctuation to clarify the start of the sixth stanza, claiming it was “ambiguous.” I eventually added punctuation and other changes to the entire stanza, to better get my meaning across. In the second stanza, Naomi felt that the ellipsis was “unnecessary;” I agreed, removing it from the poem. Jeff suggested that I change the “bacon,” in stanza five, line two, to something less repetitive, or “random,” which I did. Alicia said that she thought the lines “But are scorched by the sun / And by apathy” were “too weak;” after working with this stanza some, I changed these lines, not exactly to her liking, but, hopefully, improving them to some extent. On my own, I changed the first line of the fourth stanza (lunch) to better resemble the opening lines of the other food stanzas. I also added “Brother,” “Sister,” and so on to the sixth stanza – ideally, to make the person/people, the “You” described, seem more intimate. Besides expressing myself better, I thought this change may increase the emotionally appeal here, as well as show the narrator’s very close-to-home guilt. Thinking of other people as family makes the situation more serious and lays responsibility on the shoulders of the more fortunate members of the “family.”

There were a significant amount of suggestions that I resisted when re-working the poem. I have never been much of a reviser; I typically do not re-write or heavily edit essays, poems or short stories I compose. This is probably a flaw and something I should learn to overcome. There is, for whatever reason, something about a work constructed in one take, with minimal editing, that appeals to me – a sense of urgency, perhaps, though this could be developed with editing as well. Naomi recommend a possible epigraph, which I had mentioned before (I love epigraphs), but I opted to leave one out for  poem of this size. Both Alicia and Jeff had some issues with the lines in parentheses, ending stanzas three, four and five; I neither wanted to make all three parenthetic lines the same, nor change my third parenthetic line, making all three different. One of my stylistic choices in poetry is to use repetition that is not repeated or obvious enough to be a chorus of some kind, but nevertheless strikes the reader at certain moments. I would like to think this gives the poem a better sense of form, while remaining relatively free in construction. Jeff also suggested that I keep the structure of the three food stanzas consistent; I think I agree, but have had trouble reorganizing these lines. I want to keep the food coming in the order it would probably be eaten in, bringing the reader along the smorgasbord as the narrator feasts. Alicia asked, “How is bacon crisp and wet at the same time?”, and though I technically agree with her, I have this image of my favorite type of bacon: firm and somewhat crisp, not burned, and still retaining its fatty goodness – little greasy pools tend to gather in its curves; so I kept that line. Several other grammatical changes were offered by Alicia, such as removing the “flyraped” line or replacing “eat until” with “devour” in the last stanza, but I tried most of these changes, at least mentally, and decided I like much of the flow and wording of the poem as it was.

Overall, I am mostly satisfied with the poem. There are several places I would like to work with, such as the three food stanzas, but as a whole, I’m happy with how the poem reads and how its meaning is conveyed. “To Eat And To Drink And To Be Merry” isn’t intended to be part of a larger work, although I plan to write on this theme more in the future. As I mentioned early, I hope my poem is able to pull the reader in to the gluttonous meal, and then hit hard with hellish, physically disturbing imagery, forcing a sort of realization of sorts – or at least to experience the narrator’s sickness of heart as he considers the “other.”

I’d love to have this published but have never looked into publishing anything. The Bayousphere would be a great place to start; I have just never gotten around to sending anything in. I would like to clear up a few problematic lines or stanzas, perhaps fixing the rhythm and flow, as well as make my points and references more clear. Perhaps with practice and work, this can be accomplished.

Original Poem

To Eat And To Drink And To Be Merry

Dearest long-sufferer, under my thumb,
When all of your back-braking work is done,
Be you alive or be you dead,
I’ll grind your bones to make my bread.

Today I shall feast upon –
With little thought,
And great relish –
But please, please, if you’d only…
Allow me to embellish:

Bacon, crisp and wet with fat,
Chicken eggs, flash-fried in grease,
Berries and apples, bananas, grapes,
Picked, so fresh, picked just for me,
By hand,
(Whatever I desire is mine)

Catfish and shrimp, fried in fat,
Caught, so fresh, caught just for me,
By hand,
Collard greens and potatoes, mashed,
A massive milkshake, chocolate please,
(I desire, therefore I have)

Steak, moist and trimmed with fat,
A spinach and bacon and walnut salad,
Made, so fresh, made just for me,
By hand,
A pear or peach or pumpkin pie
(Whatever I desire is mine)

But your food is clay
And dirt your drink
Trash your home your water meat
A filthy river brings no relief
You live in darkness
But are scorched by the sun
And by apathy
You are hungry naked sick
But a stranger
Not my neighbor
Not even my enemy
Flyraped worminfested
Rotting alive

Of your skin and bones and heart and will,
I eat until I have my fill.