Explanation:
This poem took overall more than 7 months to write. I began the idea shortly after the start of September but never was able to finish molding the form or the rhyme scheme. The initial idea came to me on Michigan Avenue near the Art Institute when surveying the buildings there for some achitechtural photography. I began thinking about the height and magnitude of the stuctures and gave a lot of thought to the visual perspective of the behemoth buildings. The storyline that runs through this piece is that the central character of the poem is a troubled man. One who is plagued by voices in his mind which will not let him escape his past wrongs.These voices are what "call" him by his real name. I always loved the play "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller in which one of the final scenes is John Proctor screaming at the Judge "...leave me my name!" This idea of a "name" being the soul of an individual. The truth that cannot be escaped. Mr. Shore in the poem is the real name of the voice, which has obviously taken on a new name to cover his dark past. We get only a small glimpse of why and how Mr. Shore came to be in this situation but that is pivotal because it really doesn't matter how or why. Just like in real life, it doesn't matter how or why we get into trouble, just how we deal with it once we're there. This piece ends with the saddest possible outcome though. Mr. Shore decides that escape is his option and fails to confront the demons of his past. This in no way supports or condones the act of suicide. It rather is a discourse of the failure that suicide is. I have always believed that the Lord chose the time in which I entered the world and he therefore will choose the time in which I leave it. |
