The misery of the individual in crowds is the theme here, and death itself is the only release available to the harried sole who wants an end their unceasing tread on life's treadmill.
Tony Hoagland is a writer I like because of his skill at constructing what begins as conventional narrative--in this case one suspects he is about to go into a jejune broadside about power corrupting absolutely--and then changing course ever so, to go with a counter narrative from his own life. "Confinement" goes from the global to the local with a swiftness of association that's substantiated by Hoagland's attention to small but telling details, and his particular skill at drawing distinctions and then erasing them. There is what we take to be the description of televised news headlines of a coup

The dictator in the turban died and was replaced
by a dictator in a Western business suit.
Now that he looked like all the other leaders, observers

detected a certain relaxing of tensions. Something in the air
said the weather was changing,
and if you looked up at the sky and squinted, you could almost see

the faint dollar signs embossed upon the big, migrating clouds,

And then the abrupt transition to the narrator's real time doings, snapped from a gaze of silent news headlines to his actual task of trying to get to a funeral on the other side of town. There is something of what-the-hell happening here , with the conventionally phrased anti-politician rhetoric of the first sequence and the WHAM! segue that comes without warning, but there is something; it's about the details, the creeping , scarcely contained dread that creeps through the body as one observes themselves in a crowd gathered to the departed, a brother in law who had large appetites and bad habits that caused his demise and forced this ritualized grieving on his family and associates. The anxiety of trying to think of nice things to say about someone you scarcely knew to people you're not especially interested in is credibly conveyed here;

And Barney was dead, big PartyBoy Barney,
famous for his appetite and lack of self-control—
—now, needing an extra-large coffin,

as if he was taking his old friends
Drinking Eating and Smoking
into the hole with him.

—So what hovered over the proceedings that afternoon
was a mixture of grief and vindication—
like a complex sauce the pallbearers and aunts

were floating in, each one thinking,
"Oh God! I told him this would happen!"

I like the way Hoagland alternates between his terse narration and the overheard remarks of the other mourners, the babbling, weeping, beseeching voices that are confounded with the death of someone in their concentric spheres of association. Escape is the theme here, a need for release from what imprisons the body , whether socially, addictively, physically, and Hoagland's observes , toward the end, he finds an empty room with a television turned on, sound off, recalling the coup presented in precis in the first stanza. A hit , a palpable hit, an undeniable aha, eureka, a small but actual moment of clarity reveals itself, in a flash of insight;

Even with the sound off,
not even knowing the name of the country,
I thought that I could understand

what they were protesting about,
what had made them so angry:

They wanted to be let out of the TV set;

It doesn't matter what killed his brother in law, it doesn't matter what style of suit a dictator wears, it matters little what mourners think they should have done or what the departed might have thought after the eulogies are read, there comes the time when one all the events and material things in the world cease to have delineated meanings and rational purposes and come to instead symbolize the crushing burdon one feels in the extremity of radical self-consciousness. The reason for the televised protests wasn't what our beleaguered soul related to, it was the energy that needed release, violent release. He wants out of the box as well.

This is a fine analysis, and even explains the issues that some others have had with the inclusion of the 'ex-wife' bit. Following Ted's logic, I think, the narrator wants to escape, perhaps, from his feelings of guilt regarding the disolution of his marriage, but thinks better of it, as if the conversation required would simply lead to an immediate moment of confinement and maybe even, if I may stretch it, a chance that he will never be able to escape that guilt if he 'loses' the conversation with his ex. Better that the next ex deals with it.

And so the narrator, instead, 'escapes' to another room, where he finds the television and his moment of epiphany.

Well done.

Hi, Ted, What a great observation when you said 'he wants out of the box as well.' And another one when you said the narrator moved from the global to the local. Those two comments really helped tie the poem together for me.

As always Ted, your observations are acute, but I think you miss the mark in your overall frame on this poem. I don't see Hoagland's sense of confinement as being stuck on the treadmill of life. I think the issue here is more closely related to the dualistic nature of confinement. Although in this and other threads the focus has been on confinement, I think this poem "spills over" as much as it confines. Dollars spill out of the sky; Barney nearly spills out of his extra large coffin; vindication spills out of the mourners; the protagonists emotions about his divorce spill out of him; the crowds spill out of the TV. I see this as a meditation on the costs and struggle of "confinement" social, political, personal, emotional, physical. I think Hoagland perhaps bites off more than he can chew here, but I admire the skill on display here....more to say on this, but my own sense of confinment is calling me...I'm late for a meeting....

Howdy,OneArt. I'd say that the "treadmill" I refer is evidence of the confinement Hoagland is writing about; what's for certain is that at this moment, the experience recollected in the poem, he wants out of the life he no longer has empathy for. I don't think the poem is political in the way some have suggested, although it starts that way. Rather, the first stanza is set up as a situation that will be contrasted against the narrator's increasing unease, and with the final stanza, he alone in the room with a television blaring with the sound off, we find him relating not to the righteousness of the cause, but only to the gathered anger and rage itself. All these angry faces seemed ready to burst out of their confines, spill over, render their former social relationships meaningless. What appeals to me is not the sense this makes as an argument rather than the sense it gives of the sensation of being closed in and set upon, and the increasing level of the instinct of fight-or-flight.

what's for certain is that at this moment, the experience recollected in the poem, he wants out of the life he no longer has empathy for. I don't think the poem is political in the way some have suggested, although it starts that way. Rather, the first stanza is set up as a situation that will be contrasted against the narrator's increasing unease, and with the final stanza, he alone in the room with a television blaring with the sound off, we find him relating not to the righteousness of the cause, but only to the gathered anger and rage itself. All these angry faces seemed ready to burst out of their confines, spill over, render their former social relationships meaningless. What appeals to me is not the sense this makes as an argument rather than the sense it gives of the sensation of being closed in and set upon, and the increasing level of the instinct of fight-or-flight.

It's hard for me to like a poem that uses a political situation (and a line like "The neighborhood, ugly and poor... a reminder of misery in the world") merely as a set up for a guy stuck at a wake with his ex. If he wants out of the life he no longer has empathy for, all he has to do is walk out the front door.

That's why I still think Hoagland, whether he was successful or not, had a bigger plan for this poem. I agree that by the end of the poem, the narrator wants out of his box, too, but I'd like to think the poem is about his understanding of the boxes we're all in, personally and politically.

If the poem uses politics merely as a set up for a revelation about one's own life, that truly is narcissistic. Hoagland's already been there, done that with his self-aware, ironic What Narcissism Means to Me. This poem is not ironic.

Saying that Hoagland's use of a political situation is narcissistic is a little shallow, MA. Hoagland's narrator is responding to the jacked-up reporting and manipulated images of the situation, an editing style designed to ratchet up the viewer's anxiety level; Marcuse discusses this when he refers to the Thantonic desire, which is the desire to consume, engineered by marketing, to deny an impending sense of doom. The poet here is on the money and accomplishes the task of getting at a common malaise that is an obvious under current in a materialist culture,

Saying that Hoagland's use of a political situation is narcissistic is a little shallow, MA

Oh, the frustrations, sometimes, of online discussions! What I said was --

If the poem uses politics merely as a set up for a revelation about one's own life, that truly is narcissistic.

And the reason I said that is because your posts seemed to imply that the poem was primarily about the narrator’s personal plight, not his identification with anything bigger --

what's for certain is that at this moment, the experience recollected in the poem, he wants out of the life he no longer has empathy for. I don't think the poem is political in the way some have suggested, although it starts that way. Rather, the first stanza is set up as a situation that will be contrasted against the narrator's increasing unease, and with the final stanza, he alone in the room with a television blaring with the sound off, we find him relating not to the righteousness of the cause, but only to the gathered anger and rage itself.

As for my own take on the poem, I said -

That's why I still think Hoagland, whether he was successful or not, had a bigger plan for this poem. I agree that by the end of the poem, the narrator wants out of his box, too, but I'd like to think the poem is about his understanding of the boxes we're all in, personally and politically.

Happily, you and I ultimately appear to agree -

Marcuse discusses this when he refers to the Thantonic desire, which is the desire to consume, engineered by marketing, to deny an impending sense of doom. The poet here is on the money and accomplishes the task of getting at a common malaise that is an obvious under current in a materialist culture,

On to the Thursday OPP

...the reason I said that is because your posts seemed to imply that the poem was primarily about the narrator’s personal plight, not his identification with anything bigger .

The poem is primarily about the narrator's own plight.It's an efficient dialectic the poet puts across here.Remember that his unraveling is triggered, by implication, by a media hyped reports of a coup in the Middle East, cause of the turmoil not disclosed. It sets the tone for the rest of his day, which he was obviously anticipating with dread. After he is saturated with the alienating currents of the memorial service, he returns from the local to the global, witnessing angry televised protests, feeling it as rage about to spill over or explode from the box containing it, and recognizes at once that he isn't the only one who feels like this. He indeed does relate to something larger than his own unease; he realizes the discomfort is shared, the rage is same whatever the language.