Homework: Desire and Regret

Wait, don't go.  It's good homework.  Trust me.  

Part I: Desire

One of my favorite poems is Robert Pinsky's "The Want Bone."  I was lucky enough to hear it read by Dr. Pinsky during a lecture when I was at NMSU.   Pinsky, the former poet laureate of the United States and the creator of the Favorite Poem Project, was an odd mix of arrogant and attractive.  I didn't exactly like him, but I was totally enraptured by his voice.  A low rumble, with just a hint of gravel, and crystal-clear enunciation of every syllable.  Imagining him saying the word 'stupidity' gives me a little shiver of delight.*  

Go read "The Want Bone."  (Skip down to read the poem and the paragraph before it, then come back.  I'll wait.  I'll whistle a little tune to keep me occupied.)  Go back and read it again. Read it a few times.  Read it once out loud if no one's looking.  Notice how sensual and sexy the poem becomes.  

A gaping, sun-bleached shark jaw on the beach.  That's the image at the heart of this poem, but there is so much desire--unfulfilled desire--in the poem.  So much longing.  Desire that is not only unfulfilled, but is unable to be fulfilled.  

The bone, the jaw, the structure of the mouth that consumes; the irony of the giant predator consumed by "infinitesimal mouths."  The shark is "uncrushed, unstrung" but not unhinged.  The jaw bone is transformed in a few lines into something more sensual, more physical, more vaginal: "...In groined spirals pleated like a summer dress. / But where was the limber grin, the gash of pleasure."  If we allow ourselves to be pulled down into the glitter (gutter), the bone and the O and the gash makes the words erotic, sex unsexed.  A monument to never-to-be-fulfilled longing on the paradise of the beach. 

Hang on while I take a cold shower. 

Part II: Regret (for the Pirates, argh)

In his now infamous book about the life of a kitchen pirate, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, Anthony Bourdain colorfully exposes the gritty life of a cook/chef in New York City.  There are any number of things in that book that I love (like the sourdough sponge ['feed the bitch'], the pirates, or having sex with the bride in the alley), but one bit that has stuck with me is the Ice Cream Truck.  Bourdain imagines himself facing a careening Mister Softee Truck as a metaphor for facing his own mortality and cataloguing his regrets.  Extra credit if you go read the book, or at least skim the bits about the ice cream truck, in the 270-ish page range.  

Part III: My Point (hint, I don't have one)

Nope, no point.  Just some observations.  I could go all writery on you here and tell you that contemplating the interplay between desire and regret might help you build a story or understand the motivation of your characters.  Or I could  be your pop psychologist and say that the desire/regret dynamic might help you understand yourself better, or something.  But I'm not going to do that.  The rain is too pretty and cool, the grass is too soft and lush under my toes.  Today I'm just looking at the shape of the pomegranate tree and marveling at its balance.  

*Here's a link to Pinsky reciting his poem "Samurai Song" to give you a taste of his voice.