ABC by Robert Pinsky

ABC

by Robert Pinsky

Any body can die, evidently. Few

Go happily, irradiating joy,

Knowledge, love. Many

Need oblivion, painkillers,

Quickest respite.

Sweet time unafflicted,

Various world:

X=your zenith.

This poem was first published in 1999, in The New York Review of Books. Click here to read it there and definitely look around--they publish lots of great poetry and review more books than any of us could possibly ever read. I love reading well-written reviews, and this site is overloaded with them.

Obviously, this poem was a form exercise for Pinksy. He wrote an abecedarian, but instead of just alphabetizing the first word of a 26 line poem, he wrote a 26 word poem in which each word is in alphabetical order. (There's a challenge for you poets!)

But this is more than just a "look how clever I am" form poem--it is actually a great poem! The inclusion of the word "evidently" in the first sentence has sardonic humor--did that grown man just realize everyone dies?!?--that then turns into a bit of grief--did that grown man just lose someone so loved by him he thought they were invincible?

Then there comes the there's-2-kinds-of-people part: only a few die happy, providing their loved ones (or whoever happens to be there) with wise words. Most of us will die medicated to ward off pain. Yikes! True, and we all know it, but to read it in such a blunt way makes that knowledge sting a wee bit more.

I love writing abecedarians and I can tell you that those last 6 words can be a real struggle. X is particularly troublesome, and many poets use X as a word, as Pinsky does here. In his last stanza, the first line--Various world--refers back to that 2 kinds of people. The last line can, I think, be read numerous ways. I lean to the X meaning X marks the spot, and the speaker is telling us to think ahead and grab some amazing idea from our own zeniths. Mark that pithy thought and hold onto it to announce on our deathbeds--defy the stats and be one of the few who are able to part with some life-changing advice. In this way, the end of the poem bookends with the start--a bit of humor which is also sad: we cannot possibly know if we will be one of the few and this advice causes us to accept that we will die.

This is one of my two favorite Pinsky poems; I will post the other sometime soon on this blog. In the meantime, look for his wonderful books; he writes poetry, obviously, but also prose (memoir, poetry criticism, sociological essays, etc.) and he has edited anthologies and translated Dante's Inferno. His poetry books include At the Foundling Hospital, Jersey Rain, Gulf Music, and The Figured Wheel. He is a Jersey boy, and much of his poetry and prose involves New Jersey. I have Jersey Breaks in my Audible library, and I think that will be my next listen.

Until next time . . .