by Catriona Mills

An Ode to Pirates

Posted 10 March 2008 in by Catriona

I’m obsessed with Pirates on Facebook.

I’m not as obsessed as some; I’m a mere level 244 Corsair Pirate. But even that level of high-seas ferociousness took some doing.

The game is slightly odd. It’s essentially farming; you roam around the ocean—well, you move forward in what feels like a straight line—picking up various items that you use to buy ship upgrades, or fight monsters, or attack your friends.

I mean, where’s the downside? Where else can you attack sea monsters with dynamite-wielding parrots?

Plus, pirates are awesome. Everyone knows that pirates are inherently cooler than ninjas.

But one of the things that I love most about Pirates is the way in which you need to type in thoroughly bizarre combinations of words in order to heal yourself after a fight. Apparently, the ability to type disconnected pairs of words proves that you’re a “human pirate.”

So, I’ve decided that the only way to really celebrate my joy in Pirates is to write a poem* entirely out of pairs of words that I’ve been asked to type during the healing process. I’ve added punctuation, but other than that each pair of words is accurate.

*Disclaimer: I’m not sure whether people regularly meet poets, but you do meet a large number of them when you work in an English department. Every poet I’ve ever met has been a lovely and extremely talented person. I sincerely hope that none of them think that I think that this is a real poem.

An Ode to Pirates

Weekends with
guess firearms
fantasia, but
[com]pany’s analogy—
wick shadowing
year—moves,
solicited, united.
Thieves and
circus circular
blunder, however,
attempt pianists,
Milton—forward—
theatre, horseback;
the affecting
nominations—tine.

An Exegesis

Lines 1-3: The author celebrates the fascination of a world in which she can spend weekends with fantastic weaponry, especially throwing bombs at fellow pirates.
There is an element of mendacity in these lines, since the author rarely waits for weekends, but instead usually plays Pirates during the work day.
Lines 3-7: A sense moves in of the passing of time, and the author starts to think that maybe blowing friends and colleagues out of the water is not a productive way of spending time.
Lines 8-10: This sense of wasted time leads to remembrance of childhood fantasies of running away from home and joining the circus, as long as it was the kind of circus that Enid Blyton depicted.
Lines 11-13: The author thinks of other, more productive ways of spending time, such as learning the piano, or reading Milton; the thought of the seventeenth-century poet is a particular spur to a sense of futility, leading to the more exaggerated desire for horseback riding, even though horses are ridiculously large and slightly creepy.
Lines 14-15: The surreality of the idea that she would even be capable of riding an enormous horse—with the fangs, and the frothing jaws, and the hooves the size of dinner plates—brings the author back to her senses, and the thought of forks reminds her that her best bet would be to go and make herself some lunch.

Share your thoughts [13]

1

Tim wrote at Mar 10, 02:40 pm

Given the exegesis, I think it is obvious that the last word should in fact be ‘time’. The current wording must be an introduced error, derived perhaps from an editor’s misreading of the original manuscript.

I also believe, though I am less confident on this point, that the middle lines are at least as much about the thwarting of childhood dreams as the living of them. ‘Thieves and circus circular blunder’; the unity of the company fails to achieve anything meaningful, as its members are revealed as criminals and fools.
Further research is required to determine the extent to which the text refers to events (either real or imagined) in the poet’s life.

Finally, I feel obliged to suggest that the exegete’s apparent hippophobia reduces the value of the comments on lines 11-15.

2

matt wrote at Mar 10, 11:17 pm

um

3

Catriona wrote at Mar 10, 11:57 pm

I’m unconvinced that hippophobia renders the analysis less valuable.

Granted, we no longer operate exclusively from a critical position that argues that the meaning of any given piece of writing is formed entirely in the mind of the reader at the moment of reading, any more than we still adhere to a critical focus constructed around an attempt to retrieve biographical data about the author’s life to better understand what their intention might have been—so that literary criticism became a futile form of imaginary archaeology.

But, we do accept that both the author and the reader bring experiences to bear on writing and that it is, in a sense, the meeting of those experiences that constructs the meaning of the text for that particular reader.

Given that, is it not possible that there is an inherent sense of ambivalence within the poem towards the idea of horses—the same ambivalence that you expertly note in lines 11-15 about circuses—which is magnifying the exegete’s inherent hippophobia?

So that the latter, rather than reducing the value of the criticism, becomes a heightened response to the underlying uncertainties of the poem, becomes—in essence—a way of revealing anxieties within the writing of which the poet herself may have been unaware?

4

Tim wrote at Mar 11, 12:34 am

Although I am not unaccepting of your Leavisite tendencies, I remain unconvinced by your reading in this instance, because I do not detect the same ambiguity. As I read it, the ‘forward’ relates back to ‘moves’ in a resumption of the linear movement (of time and, I think, of the poet in time) that is interrupted by the circular movement of the middle of the poem. This renewal of progress, along with the ‘affecting nominations’, strikes me as optimistic; the ambiguity is in the object, rather than the nature, of the emotion.

5

Tim wrote at Mar 11, 06:07 am

In other words, the poem is about growing up.

6

Catriona wrote at Mar 11, 06:18 am

I think the disagreement here lies in a disjunction in the reading of the mood of the verb “forward”.

To me, “forward” is imperative. While it is certainly possible that the poet is speaking imperatively to herself, it seems as likely that the imperative voice is coming either from outside the poet or from a speaker who, while technically part of the poet, is nevertheless speaking from outside or, more accurately, from a disputatious position: the best description of this voice, it seems, would be “the prickings of the conscience.”

This reading seems to me supported by the sharp break away from the main sentence that is created by the em-dash pair.

In that reading, the verb “moves” certainly suggests the resumption of a forward movement of time as the poet becomes uneasily aware that playing Pirates is a static state at odds with the other demands on her time. But it is not directly connected to the verb “forward” because the two actions are being enacted by two different subjects—or, if you accept the presence of a conscience as a discrete player, by two different aspects of the same subject.

In this reading, then, the imperative to movement comes from outside the poet, or at least from outside the part of the poet that longs to remain within the staticity of Pirates. Thus, the last section of the poem becomes not optimistic, but rather an expression of the poet’s own weakness of character and inability to break from a non-productive pattern—just as the jarring succession of nouns—theatre, horseback, Milton, pianists—recalls the circular middle section even while it is fragmenting it.

7

Catriona wrote at Mar 11, 06:20 am

Now, I missed that other comment, while I was writing mine, but it seems to me that my reading could also support that conclusion.

8

Tim wrote at Mar 11, 08:48 am

I see nothing conclusively supporting the claim of a second voice. A pair of dashes also occurs around the eloquent phrase ‘wick shadowing year’, where it is not suggestive of imperative mood. If the word ‘forward’ was capitalised and/or followed by an exclamation mark, I would find your argument more convincing, but as it is not, it seems to me that it is a product of the same voice as the rest of the poem.

But even if I did accept that element of your argument, you go on to suggest that the imperative voice is directing the poet into action, so the connection of movement remains by your own account.

9

Catriona wrote at Mar 11, 09:03 am

Yes, the connection of movement remains, but my argument in favour of a second point centres on the idea that though the idea of movement develops throughout the poem, they are two distinct movements, with two distinct agents.

Or, more properly, that there’s the same movement, but the first comes from within the poet—a more tentative, a lower movement, arising from a developing sense of futility and staticity—and the second comes from without, or from a separate part of the poet—an imperative voice, urging the poet to continue moving away from Pirates and towards seventeenth-century poetry.

The argument regarding the imperative mood for the verb “forward” does not rest on the em-dashes alone; that is merely a telling point.

This returns, in essence, to my argument that the exegete’s hippographia arises from an ambivalence in the poem—that the poet needs to be urged forward suggests that the final movement is less optimistic (a wellspring of positive emotion coming from within) than it is driven (a feeling, either external or from an internal voice that has a separate existence) and therefore less positive than you initially suggest.

10

Tim wrote at Mar 11, 10:15 am

The so-called ‘telling point’ is the only concrete evidence you have advanced for this tendentious claim of a second voice, and it is, as I have pointed out, countered from within the text. Although I will concede that the final lines are not necessarily optimistic, I find your line of reasoning, at best, strained.

On a tangent, I confess to feeling a temptation to join Facebook in order to experience more of this poet’s work. Perhaps comparison of this ode with others in the corpus will shed more light on the above topic.

11

Catriona wrote at Mar 11, 10:50 am

All right, I will admit that it’s plausible that there is a single voice spurring the movement in the poem. Apparently, my faecetious interpreting-poetry voice has abandoned me at my point of greatest need.

But I maintain that the final line is not a misreading of the original manuscript, but a clear desire to make some lunch.

(“Wick shadowing year” is a good line, though, isn’t it? That’s the one that prompted the entire idea.)

And Facebook? Ugly, but fun. You can play Packrat with us!

12

Nick Caldwell wrote at Mar 11, 11:01 am

As an entirely impartial spectator, I feel well-placed to declare Catriona the moral victor in this exchange. Huzzah!

13

matt wrote at Mar 11, 12:52 pm

You are all insane.

Comment Form

All comments are moderated and moderation includes a non-spoiler policy based on Australian television scheduling.

Textile help (Advice on using Textile to format your comments)
(if you do not want your details filled in when you return)

Categories

Blogroll

Monthly Archive

2012
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
2011
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
August
October
November
December
2010
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
October
December
2009
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
2008
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December