{"id":725,"date":"2016-08-15T11:50:47","date_gmt":"2016-08-15T15:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/?p=725"},"modified":"2016-08-24T15:11:07","modified_gmt":"2016-08-24T19:11:07","slug":"accepted-the-barnum-interview-by-michael-hurley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/accepted-the-barnum-interview-by-michael-hurley\/","title":{"rendered":"Accepted: “The Barnum Interview” by Michael Hurley"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the poem \u201cThe Barnum Interview,\u201d Michael Hurley crafts an imaginative interview with P.T. Barnum, who becomes a completely unlikeable\u2014but strangely seductive\u2014speaker.<\/span>\u00a0 As with all well-done persona poetry, Hurley\u2019s Barnum casts an unusual view of the world, but one the reader wants to believe could be real.<\/span>\u00a0 Barnum\u2019s observations accumulate into character, perhaps most chillingly with the statement that men and women are \u201call small enough to fit inside a cage.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This persona sees everything through the lens of the circus, with other humans as its commodities, and unfolds in a finely-engineered, call-and-response format.\u00a0 <\/span>There is just enough of a looseness and disconnect between the questions and answers to create an eerie atmosphere, but all seem inevitable of Barnum\u2019s character.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The questions asked of Barnum generate as much interest as the answers: They are plausible, but uncommon to the celebrity interview format.\u00a0 <\/span>He is asked, \u201cWhen did you realize you were mortal?\u201d and responds with an anecdote about a man selling him an x-ray of his teeth; the first time Barnum understands that he has a skeleton inside of him, even though the x-ray is later revealed to be no more than a crude drawing.\u00a0 <\/span>A mix of long and short answers\u2014ranging from full paragraphs to two-word, matter-of-fact conclusions\u2014tightly control the pacing of the poem, and offer a wealth of world-and voice-building.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the work is interesting on a first read and gives a quick first impression, this piece is one that yields more with each perusal.\u00a0 <\/span>It tackles large issues (God, death, human cruelty, money) with fine-tuned details that age well: teeth as cranberries, a train as success, humans as owls, mandrakes as a trick.\u00a0 <\/span>Barnum doesn\u2019t care to know he lives on a spinning planet, and instead turns his attention to hedonistic pleasures and whatever happens to exist within train\u2019s reach.<\/span><\/p>\n

These strange images also play with the clich\u00e9s of the circus.\u00a0 <\/span>The phrase \u201cThe crowd goes wild\u201d leaves familiar territory when it is used to answer \u201cWhat happens when you die?\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>This poem does not avoid those images and phrases known to the circus and the time period in which P. T. Barnum lived, but rather recasts them in new material.<\/span><\/p>\n

All of this adds up to a persona that can relate any image, any theme, and any question to the circus and the personal character it takes to lead one.\u00a0 <\/span>By reflecting on his own experiences, this Barnum indirectly shows the reader what he offers his circus audiences: the knowledge of mortality, but given by an illusion that forces you to think about what\u2019s inside yourself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Barnum himself knows he is not above the call of the entertaining con man, and when asked about the x-ray he knew was fake, \u201cDid you buy it from him?\u201d responds, \u201cOf course.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>This punch of an ending reminds the reader how captivated a human can be by what\u2019s constructed and what\u2019s cruel.\u00a0 <\/span>Even though readers of this poem will and should dislike this Barnum character, he couldn\u2019t have built the world\u2019s most well-known circus without the support of a roaring audience.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the poem \u201cThe Barnum Interview,\u201d Michael Hurley crafts an imaginative interview with P.T. Barnum, who becomes a completely unlikeable\u2014but… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accepted","category-mar-issues","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":726,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725\/revisions\/726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}