Thinking about Michael Callaghan's poem, "Miles of Yogurt"
First of all, thanks Michael, for submitting the first poem to Revisionist's Corner. I love the voice in your poem. It sees itself as a little foolish, stretching itself out into huge abstractions. Normally I don't much like this use of "you," but the speaker's humility wins me here. And his experience is a general comment on all of us-we're all a little nuts. We exaggerate, we think we need yogurt when we don't, we get things all mixed up in our heads so that here and there become the same. Great. I love the first stanza. Then I begin to hang on by my toenails to understand, and need more help. Let me see if I can follow, stanza by stanza:
1. You (the speaker) has gotten sucked in by hyperbole
2. Even though you'd like to take credit for hyperbole (All hyperbole? Some particular hyperbolic thought? -now I'm getting lost-the Truth broke in when you were taking off your left sock (Were you on your way to the store? I'd think you'd be putting ON your sock.) (Truth = opposite of hyperbole, somehow?-After all, it "breaks in" on the grandiose thinking.)
3-4. The Truth was that you have yogurt after all in your fridge, lots of it.
5. You still think of your spoon as important, tonight--? (Is it no longer important? Have we left the level of needing yogurt? How to signal that...? )
6. But some epiphany has apparently caused you to see that all things unite-volume and distance are one. In Einstein's world, there is no need to go after yogurt. All is in the same place.
The speaker's describing a revelation he's had. [Why does he pull the line from Frost, "Truth broke in"-am I to read "Birches" into this poem?] I have to keep trying making sense out of the poem literally, because it invites me to do that (grocery store closing soon, pulled off left sock). And hooray for that. A poem needs an anchor in the real world. So what is this real world? Is there yogurt in the refrigerator that he just realized is there? What makes him jump from that realization to the thought that all things (volume and distance) are in the same place?
How to revise? I'll offer a mundane thought. First of all, I'd suggest that you paraphrase the poem to yourself on paper, stanza by stanza, as I did, above. [I may be hopelessly confused about what it's doing. If I've missed the boat, find what might have let me astray and fix that.] See if you're sure what you intend it to do. Then do some more free writing-because I think this poem is bigger than its present shape and size. I think the moment is an important one for the speaker, and I can't yet ride along with him through that moment. I can't quite be there. And I want to be. It's a good moment-something extraordinary has reared up in the middle of ordinary life. I love the form of the poem-the couplets and the Emily Dickinson-like rapturous dashes, the feeling of thought dashing.
Hyperbole has touched you, that God of bucketfulls,
of tons and tons, of screaming-down-the road.
And even though you'd like to claim credit for such elegance--
how Truth-broke-in as you pulled that left sock off,
it was divine intervention reminding you
that even though the grocery store was closing soon,
there is yogurt in your fridge -- miles of it --
all roads to and from home paved with yogurt,
so while the spoon still registers
as abstractly important, tonight --
volume and distance have become one.
Thank God. Einstein.
