JulieRanderson



 Julie Randerson

I’m agitated when I read of pirates. Growing up, I walked so many planks my feet were a mess of splin- ters. Supposedly, very few pirates made prisoners walk the plank, more productive putting them to work. But my Blackbeards needed that paternal loin-tug one derives from the sound of young, healthy male splitting the waves. Continually saved by mermaids, waterlogged, I persisted, devouring my share of limes, yet unable to please these master mariners, always probing my backside with their big swords, always more and more examinations: “Subtract the number of Ali Baba’s thieves from the number of Arabian Nights, then add the Voyages of Sinbad. What do you get?” Or “repeat fifty times: ‘Making merry maps for mighty marooned mariners.’” Insatiable they be, and everywhere.

**//Way 1: First Impressions//**
The narrator of this poem seems to be a pirate himself thinking back upon his younger years as a sea-faring man rather than what he must be now. He is reminiscing about his life when he was a pirate. He feels the writings about pirates now seem to be less truthful than what actually occured, and the narrator would know. The narrator feels like being a pirate was one of the most manly vocations around because he talks about the "loin tug" from the "sound of young, healthy male" working through the sea (Johnson 6-7). The narrator also says pleasing the captains is tougher than saving oneself from drowning (Johnson 7-8). These mariners, these pirates, would drill their men putting them through odd mental physical examinations so they became strong more rugged and manly as they voyaged on through the sea (Johnson 11). The final line of the poem, when read outloud, actually sounds like a pirate as I know one.

**//Way 2: Engaging with the Text//**
The Narrator's first line describing himself as "agitated" from writings of pirates is because the narrator feels like he knows what it is to be a pirate better than these authors who think they know what it was like to have "walked so many planks" their feet were filled with slivers (Johnson 1-2). The narrator later refers to the pirates as "My Blackbeards" describing their need to ride the ocean hard and tough as only a true pirate would (Johnson 5). The narrator claims ownership over his kind of pirate because he believes them to be the truest, toughest pirates more so than the writings of the pirates the narrator reads. The narrator then continues to catalogue his experience of pirating; sailing far and hard, nearly drowning, being "saved by mermaids," and yet he could not impress his mariners (Johnson7-9). It was a ship of men working together to make each other stronger and smarter my testing each other.

**//Way 3: Form and Its Relationship to Content//**


The form of this poem is a dramatic monologue which is where the poem has a single speaker or narrator describing first-hand their thoughts and identity (Brown and Yarbrough 85). The narrator of the poem uses "I" and "my" throughout the poem to show the readers what kind of character he is, a former pirate. The narrator is as much reminicing as he is telling the reader about his pirates as compared with the pirates of stories. This narration is shown in the paragraph form the poem takes. There are no breaks between lines; the poem is not broken up into different stanzas. The poem is in the form of a long, narrative paragraph like one would see in a novel with a first-person narrator.

//Way 4: Unpacking Figurative Language//
The narrator of the poem uses imagery to provoke the reader to believe in his life growing up as a pirate. The narrator first descibes how badly his feet hurt from walking the planks on the deck of his ship telling the reader to feel what he felt. The narrator also decsribes the "sound of young, healthy male splitting the waves" to descibe the sound of a ship at sea breaking the waves and moving with the open ocean (Johnson 6-7). I originally thought this line meant the ship splitting the waves, but upon further reading, I found these lines could also be an images of an atual male bosy piercing the water as it is thrown from a plank.

In addition to imagery in the poem, there are also uses of symbolism and allusion regarding the manly pirates aboard his ship. The narrator refers to the "paternal loin-tug one derives from the sound of young, healthy male splitting the waves" (Johnson 5-7). These lines, in addition to being images of a ship splitting the waves, or possibly a human body hitting the water, is also depicting a phallic symbol regarding a ship full of young men and their needs while they are on a quest across and around the world. The symbol goes further in line 10 stating the master mariners were "probing [his] backside with their swords." The pirates' swords are a phallic symbol, but we are unsure if the narrator means literally that the pirates were engaging in sexual behavior or if the symbol of their sword was an attribute to the master mariner's position as captain of the ship and the captain was simply wielding power over the young boys.

//Way 5: Setting//
The setting of the poem changes with the changing memories of the narrator. The overall setting of the poem is at sea while as a pirate. The narrator refers to the planks, possibly of a ship, limes and mermaids out at sea, being in the company of other mariners. The setting of the poem is not completely clear, but the over all setting of the narrator's memories are of the sea.

**//Way 6: Point of View//**
The poem is using "I" and "my" refering to first person ownership from the perspective of a narrator. The point of view the poem is written is in first person narrative.

//Way 7: Complexity, Ambiguity, Difficulty//
Lines 5 -7 hold multiple meanings for me and the ambiguity of it makes me wonder what the meaning is. The lines say "But my Blackbeards needed that paternal loin-tug / one derives from the sound of young, healthy male / splitting the waves." The fourth line comments on people walking the plank. The "sound of young, healthy male splitting the waves" could be the sound of men being pushed off the plank and hitting the water. I thought the lines could also be an image depicting the ship full of men being the dangerous pirates that they are and the "sound" is of their ship full of men cutting through the waves. The later lines in the poem talk about mermaids and more sexual imagery which also leads me to believe these lines 5-7 could be talking about sex becasue of the "loin-tug" and the phrase "splitting the waves."

Lines 8-10 hold similar ambiguity as lines 5-7. "[D]evouring my share of limes, / yet unable to please these master maniners, always / probing my backside with their big swords" makes me think of homosexual behavior or hierarchical behavior (Johnson). These young pirates were off pleasing mermaids, as I interpreted the lines 7-8, but on the ship, the young pirates could not please their masters, their captains and leaders. No matter how hard the men worked, the master mariners would not consent to a good job. On the other hand, the lines also sounded like the young pirates were off pleasing the mermaids sexually, but when they returned to the ship, their superiors would try "probing [their] backside with their big swords" meaning that the captains would try enlisting the men in homosexual behavior with the sword being a phallic symbol (Johnson).

Finally, in line 16, the narrator calls the pirates "insatiable" and "everywhere" (Johnson). This line made me wonder at what is not satisfying the mariners. Is the narrator not satifying them? The narrator's answers? His actions? And the second word, "everywhere," are the pirates everywhere or are the pirates insatiable everywhere and in every aspect of the narrator and their lives (Johnson)?

//Way 8: Canonicity//
I performed an internet search to see how prevelant the poem is, and the internet did not yield many hits on the poem. The poet, Peter Johnson, was more prevelant, but the poem was difficult to find which leads me to believe the poem is not part of the literary cannon. The question of "could it be part of the cannon later on?" is a more difficult question. The poem does not follow traditional poetic guidelines like stanzas or rhyming, but the poem does contain figurative language and imagery regarding the life at sea of a pirate. The poem's ending is ambiguous and does not wrap up the initial thoughts of the narrator, but that could add to its literary credit and value.

//Way 9: Biographical Information//
Poet and author Peter Johnson was raised in a working-class family which is mirrored in his poem (Frech). The narrator of his poem was a hard worker for his master mariners. He got splinters in his feet from his desk work and answewred the probing questions of his superiors. The narrator, like Johnson, knew how to work hard. During Johnson's education, he studied the Greek and Latin authors noting their themes and styles. In his interview with Stephen Frech from Poetry Daily, Johnson said throughout his poetry he tried to mimic those ancient poets and authors by their prose, meter, and themes. This poem was published in 1997, quite a time difference from the historic feeling of pirates this poem envokes. In this poem, Johnson is working with themes from eras past like his study with the Greek and Latin authors. Johnson tells Frech in the interview that his poetry, like his life, also has a humorous tone to it. This humor is evident in the final few lines of the poem where the narrator descibes the silly questions his superiors ask him during his examinations. In addition to his humor, Johnson also says, "When I write a poem I bring experiences, emotions---whatever---to it. I trust my imagination..." (Frech).

//Way 10: Historical and Cultural Information//
This poem was published in 1997 though it gives the reader a feeling that is was written centuries before that time. Peter Johnson wrote the poem near the end of the century as well as near the end of a millenium. The narrator is reminicing and feeling nostalgic about his past. This could be true for Johnson not to mention countless other individuals from all over the world.

There is also a theme within the poem of homosexuality and same sex actions. When this poem was written, LGBT Rights and movements had been occuring since the turn of the 20th century, but since the AIDS outbreak int he 1980's homosexuality and LGBT issues became more prevelant. This poem's homosexual images could be an opinion about what the world had been experiencing since the 80's until the next turn of the century to the 21st century.

//Way 11: Theoretical Application//
A Psychoanalytical approach to interpreting and critiquing this poem would involve many questions directed toward the narrative voice of the poem. Are these memories accurate? If they were not from the conscious state of the narrator, were they from an unconscious thought of the narrator? Why did these things happen to the narrator and how did they affect the narrator? For instance, in line 9 the narrator says he cannot satisfy his masters no matter how hard he worked or how many examinations he endured (Johnson). Why is he trying to please these master mariners? How is is lack of pleasing them affecting his ability to perform his duties? Is that why had always had splinters in his feet (Johnson 2-3)? Other criticism would question lines 5-7 regarding the "paternal loin-tug" these pirates feel and hear (Johnson). These lines enlist images of a ship splitting the waves and of a boat full of healthy young men, but the question remains about other images these lines draw to the surface. Does the narrator have mroe first had information regarding the true lives of the men on the ship? Is there more to know that what is at the surface of the thoughts? Does the thought run deeper? And finally, what is the narrator discussing when he is talking about his pirates? Were they part of his imagination from childhood? Did he pretend he was a pirate? Criticism from the psychoanalytical approach questions the images used by the narrator and then questions the narrator as a person to dig deeper into the hidden meanings and subconcious information.

//Way 12: Another Theoretical Application//
Feminist and Gender Criticism for this poem would focus on the absence of anti-feminist images. This poem gives off an all male feeling though the narrator never fully states he is male. The masculinity is implied thoughout the poem in line 5 with "paternal loin-tug," line 6 with "healthy male," and in references such as "Ali Baba" and "Sinbad" (Johnson). The only mention of females is when the pirate says mermaids saved him in line 7 (Johnson). What would a gender critic discuss about these images within this poem? The narrator is never officially declared a male, but the images are solely masculine. The images are dripping with masculinity, especially in line 10 when the narrator says the mariners were sticking their "big swords" in behind him (Johnson). Would a gender critic discuss this poem's feeling of the cliche "Boys will be boys?" These pirates, these men from the poem are doing their manly duties of sailing the high seas surrounded by other men, envoking their hierachical rights over the lowly sailors, and comparing swords. A Gender Critic would wonder if the lack of women in the poem means that the men do not believe being a pirate can be a woman's job. James S. Brown and Scott D. Yarbrough state in their text, "From a literary standpoint...feminism embodies a way of reading theat investigates the text's investment in or reaction to the patriarchal power structures that have dominated Western culture" (226). A Feminist Critic would wonder at the poem's solid male influence and near complete lack of female involvement in a male dominated career of pirating as evidenced by this poem.

//Way 13: Overall, Unifying, Coherent Interpretation//
There are many varying areas of ambiguity in this poem. the images conjure up different thoughts in me regarding either strong, solitary pirates or groups of men who are experiencing homosexual behavior. The narrator honestly believes he was a pirate, and I believe him as well, but the evidence from my horizontal thinking leads me to believe this is a man reminicing about his imagination as a child who was pretending to be a pirate. I suppose whether the narrator was a pirate or not is irrelevant, but the poem's meaning takes on a slightly different feeling for each interpretation.

Nevertheless, the poem has interesting images and symbols that add to the poem's interest. The narrator spins an interesting story regarding his life as a pirate. There are many open interpretations and loos ends that allow the reader to interpret how they like usign their own personal knowledge and beliefs as a starting point. There is plenty of humor in the poem, especially in the last few lines about the silly questions the mariners ask ofthe narrator. this poem really makes me wonder and I appreciate it for that.

//Works Cited//
Brown, James S. and Scott D. Yarbrough. //A Practical Introduction to Literary Study//. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005.

Frech, Stephan. "Conversation with Peter Johnson." //Another Chicago Magazine//. 27 Jul 2009. <[].>.

Johnson, Peter. "Pirates." //Prose Poetry and Fiction from Web del Sol//. 27 Jul 2009. <[]>.