{"id":80,"date":"2014-06-23T22:56:04","date_gmt":"2014-06-24T02:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/?p=80"},"modified":"2014-06-23T22:56:04","modified_gmt":"2014-06-24T02:56:04","slug":"accepted-at-the-end-of-the-street-by-jeff-oaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/accepted-at-the-end-of-the-street-by-jeff-oaks\/","title":{"rendered":"Accepted: \u201cAt the End of the Street\u201d by Jeff Oaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Down<\/a><\/p>\n

In our \u201cAccepted\u201d column, <\/em>Mid-American Review editors discuss why they selected stories, poems, or essays for publication. In this post, Assistant Poetry Editor Jenelle Clausen discusses a poem that appears in our Spring 2014 issue.<\/em><\/p>\n

Genre: <\/strong>Poetry
\nTitle: <\/strong>\u201cAt the End of the Street\u201d
\nAuthor:<\/strong> Jeff Oaks
\nMAR<\/em> issue:<\/strong> Vol. XXXIV, Number 2 (Spring 2014)
\nFirst lines:<\/strong> \u201cIn the old parking lot. Where there\u2019s enough \/ darkness and distance to be struck by \/ the night sky\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

This poem, which is both short and poignant, deals with love and loss, and its central images are celestial bodies. Each line resonates with a compelling image, and the line breaks are skillful and meaningful. Just to read the final word in each line gives one a sense of the poem and its emotional content. This memorable poem is an example of word economy at its most impactful.<\/p>\n

Oaks uses his poem\u2019s title, \u201cAt the End of the Street,\u201d to lead into the first line: \u201cIn the old parking lot\u2026.\u201d We immediately have a sense of place. Oaks then goes on to mention the \u201cnight sky\u201d\u2014now we know the time of day. Thus grounding the \u201cwe\u201d in place and time within the poem, Oaks shows us Venus, the Moon (capitalized to suggest its importance and that it\u2019s specifically Earth\u2019s moon), and Jupiter, describing them succinctly in terms of shape and colored light. These celestial bodies are \u201c\u2026Millions of miles away \/ and in opposite directions from us.\u201d We\u2019re not just in a parking lot anymore; we\u2019re in the midst of a vast, unreachable (and thus unknowable) universe. Oaks has already said a lot in a small space.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s then that the poem takes a turn, and we move into the first complete sentence of the poem. It\u2019s a casual question that segues into a serious declarative sentence that gets at the heart of the poem and features the two biggest and two of the most emotionally resonant words in the poem: \u201cannihilates\u201d and \u201cresponsibility.\u201d What is this grief and its aftermath? In the final two lines of the poem, the author connects the inconceivably distant planets and Moon to a confession of human grief and aloneness: \u201cWe were talking about our parents dying then, \/ the grief of orphans hanging over us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though this sonnet\u2014which almost slips by unnoticed as such\u2014is written in unrhymed free verse, the final two lines echo the Shakespearean tradition of the ending couplet. The speaker actually says<\/em> very little about his or her shared grief; the visual description of the planets and Moon situated in the universe builds to inform those final two lines, and we feel<\/em> their emotional impact.<\/p>\n

What MAR <\/em>editors said about \u201cAt the End of the Street\u201d:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe word choice was great. I can tell that the author chose every word carefully, like there couldn\u2019t have been an alternative. And those final two lines really sneak up on you, but they\u2019re not just thrown in\u2014the whole poem builds up to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of sonnets fall short, but not this one. The form\u2014which is not strictly formal in the traditional sense\u2014and the content are both really working, and they work together. Basically, the form seems inevitable. I can\u2019t imagine this poem as not<\/em> a sonnet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jenelle Clausen, Assistant Poetry Editor<\/em><\/p>\n

Photo:<\/strong> Sparky<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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