Wednesday, October 15, 2003

This review (via Metafilter) of Bush's poem to his wife is just too funny not to post. This kind of tongue-in-cheek seriousness just cracks me up:

Though the final word seems literally to imply an aircraft carrier, we couldn't help but wonder—in this age of HIV and AIDS—if the author was bitterly implying that he, in fact, was a carrier of some venereal disease, or if he was placing a sort of curse upon her: "the next time you cheat on me may you 'land' on a 'carrier' of some horrible infectious disease." It lends the poem a disturbing quality that leaves us uncertain if we are to take joy in the reunion of these two lovers, or if we are to understand some barely repressed hostility on the part of the speaker.

In this context, we return to the end of the penultimate line and the word "barrier," which, if we are to understand the final line as interpreted above, may be re-read as "bury her." Again, we note the repressed rage of the jilted lover erupting through the surface of the poem, revealing itself in the phonetically articulated desire of the speaker to avenge his emasculation.


I at one point thought of trying to do a similar analysis of the second Inbred Brothers State skit (what are we doing?), but never had the time.

No comments: