Midwest by Paula Bonnell

Midwest

by Paula Bonnell

My heart is like Chicago’s Union Station.

Once it was full of a thunder of arrivals, departures.

In the gusty ostentation of its spaces blinked

   tremulous Rebeccas, fresh as eggs from the farm,

and the pull of the trains boomed in its aortal vaults.

How the hicks hobnobbed, then shushed in the din, eyeing the moguls eye

   those pigtails wobbling in the holes in straw hats!

It was big, big enough to contain the city.

Now it is filled with commuter regularities –

the lisping of papers, the oblong rumbles, the routine comings & goings.

In the club cars, under tables of bridge games, bobble the briefcases

   with their inbound sandwiches and their outbound stock quotes.

Cards coded with tiny symbols cover each other;

   the queen falls to the ace.

Back in the station the benches are glossy with waiting.

The place is written up in the guidebooks, a must for the ruddy tourists.

It is part of Chicago, this pump, this station, this heart.

I love trains. I love conceits (the literary term for extended metaphors). I love poems that are about love but not really but sorta and kinda but still also maybe not but yes.

This poem has all of these things.

I first encountered this poem on the radio decades ago, on September 30, 199 to be exact. Garrison Keillor has a short program called The Writer's Almanac. Each episode, put out by Minnesota Public Radio, would include a literary "On this date in history" segment, usually about starting with a writer's birthday and then discussing some things about that writer. Or it might be a death, a publication date, or another significant event in the literary world. Then Keillor would read a poem. The entire episode would last about 5 minutes.

After listening to this episode and hearing Bonnell's poem, I bought the book it was published in. (The book is Message from Mill Creek Press, published in1999.) (It was neither the first nor the last time The Writer's Almanac got me interested in a poet and/or got me to buy their book.) I adored this program--we are such a non-literary society and here was a daily feast of trivia, review, interesting tidbits, historical facts, and a poem. If Public Radio can survive this current administration, I would love for them to do this again. I will even happily take over the hosting!

But let's discuss the poem.

Bonnell's speaker tells us right away: "My heart is like Chicago’s Union Station," and from that simile, we get lots of description. And we also go into the past--"Once it was." So both the station and the speaker were busy, energetic, and full of Rebeccas. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm was a novel by Kate Douglas Wiggin, later a movie starring Shirley Temple in the title role. Rebecca was innocent, joyful, full of wonder and optimism.

After a stanza break, here signaling a big change, we are in the present: "Now it is filled with commuter regularities." Not an awful way to describe a train station or a romantic life, but definitely not as radiant as what stanza 1 describes. Now it is routine, full of card games and talk of work and money. There is waiting and a guide for strangers. Before, in stanza 1, the station was "big enough to contain" Chicago. Now, at the end of stanza 2 and the end of the poem, it is just a part of Chicago.

The poem does not end there, however. It circles back to the first line, reminding us that we are not only to think of Union Station, but also the speaker: "this pump, this station, this heart." Think of each of those nouns and what they do, and now think of them as describing both a train station and a person (or at least her romantic life). And . . . we still have the start of this sentence/line. These 3 things are also part of Chicago.

I love this poem for its complexity, it's description, and the way Bonnell gives us a very vivid conceit. Is it a love poem? An I-used-to-love poem? An I-have-given-up-on-love poem? An I-am-so-bored-in-my-relationship poem? Yes. It can be all those and more!

As with love, big cities, and life, poems can be many things at once.

Public radio continues an archive of The Writer's Almanac online. It is not the same as tuning in and listening to Keillor's calming voice, but it is something. Click here for the site.

And NPR . . . if you are reading this, I will happily accept a job as the new voice of The Writer's Almanac! Call me!