Like wooden beads on a hemp cord, Charles Grosel strings together lots of worn-out Catholic imagery to produce this unsuccessful and unsatisfying poem.

He wears his hood pulled down around his face
like a slouching monk on his daily round, his hands
joined in the pouch at his waist, a skull at his neck instead of a rosary

Grosel opens with an overworked yet unspecific congruence-- the hoodie looks like a monastic habit. But of which order? Already, the appeals to Catholic imagery are shallow and banal.

From the skull choker, the reader can get some idea this protagonist is a fairly contemporary kid. But Grosel’s exposing his ignorance of the very pool of imagery from which he’s dipping. Missing are the ‘Luminous Mysteries” which are five Gospel stories highlighting the Ministerial aspect of Jesus’ Mission. Their inclusion as meditative mysteries in the Rosary is fairly new- Pope John Pau II included them in 2002.

Here Grosel shuffles up his pile of Catholic images and deals them out like his protagonist’s adventure cards:
He's content at ten to practice
the easy monasticism of boys at play,
their rites and rituals, the laying on of hands,
the catechism of adventure cards,

I happen to be Catholic. I happen to have sons. My sons have loved fantasy play, Magic Cards, Middle Earth stories, WarHammers, et al. Something of this should resonate with me, yet all of this imagery fails. None of it speaks into view any picture of how my boys have played, fantasized, traded. or gamed. And all of it sounds like Grosel is getting his catholic imagery from a book-- a learn-as-you-go program, no less.

I'm guessing Grosel would have preferred to liken the adventure cards to holy cards, those with pictures of saints, Scripture stories, prayers etc., but found them not to be identifiable (read cliché) enough.

Just a few more pseudo-profundities of the juxtaposition of boy play and mystagogy:
hard equations of loss and redemption,
ceremonies of judgment and exile,
The reader now wonders why Grosel didn’t bet the farm and employ bell, book and candle in this dime-store heap o’eschatology?

To what end goes all this celibate monasticism-- however badly it's worked so far? The revelation: Our little hero likes girls-- a particular one, it seems. How do we know these are merely girls and not religious sisters?
a liturgy interrupted only when she
and her sisters draw near
The time signature on this meager minuette is such: there’s hardly a Catholic elementary school in the country that still employs religious sisters as teachers. Those that do foster a revival of orthodoxy. Amongst the practices is the student uniform, of which skull necklaces and hoodies wouldn’t be part.

In other words, if this poem’s setting is in a school (which I can’t see evidence of) there would be no religious sisters. If there were religious sisters, or if this was a slightly older setting, there would be no skull on the kid’s neck or hoodie because he’d be wearing a uniform. This is not the girl-awareness of some kid in the 1960's as the kid would have had baseball cards. Either Grosel means for his fellow to like girls-- just your every day girl girls, or he doesn't know what he's writing about. Or both.

a more recent rite
for which even he emerges from his cowl
face aglow with the light of the convert.

Grosel terminates his ill-informed musings with an almost cartoonish awareness of the opposite gender. Missing is the throbbing heart pounding out of his shirt, but the result is similar: And they called it puppy love. Mostly, though, I call it crap.

waltz

Addendum: I especially appreciated Ted’s balanced and insightful explanation of catechism. I teach Catholic catechism to high school freshmen and sophomores. I emphatically attest to the un-roteness of each and every hour I spend with my students. Their unwavering insistence, their consistent challenge and their God-given right is to demand “prove it.” How dare I not at least try?

Fine job, waltz, of pointing out the inconsistences in this poem. And shame on Grosel for lazily conflating the religious and secular images of different decades.

MA

Grosel is lazy and he's counting on the reader's laziness. This poem only works if the reader brings shallow, one dimensional interpretation to his cheap, one dimensional usage.

for instance: In other threads, easy monasticism was equated with pre-adolescent celibacy. but monasticism involves many charisms in addition to celibacy. Depending on the order, a monastic may take vows of obedience, solitude, or its alternative-- participation in community spirituality, silence, simplicity, personal poverty, work and prayer (ora et labora), development of virtues.

Grosel surely didn't intend his hero to be employed in play that demonstrates silent, virtuous, prayerful obedience. Instead, Grosel is playing the flat stereotype: monk equals celibate.

Re a question from another thread: monks and brothers don't wear rosaries around their necks. Madonna used to, but Bro. Athansius doesn't.

I've no argument with Grosel's theme, nor does the tone annoy. It's the linguistic torpidity (damn lazy talk) that sinks this one.

Grosel surely didn't intend his hero to be employed in play that demonstrates silent, virtuous, prayerful obedience. Instead, Grosel is playing the flat stereotype: monk equals celibate.

My impression is that the "monk"ishness is analogous to a gift for concentration, application of colorful significance to symbols, inward-directedness, focus on things of little significance to others (excepting members of the same brotherhood) common to pre-adolescence. It is not meant literally. I do not find a single reference to catholic school. No nuns appear. It is not a discussion of any particular religion, or system of religious practice. Any more specific details about such systems would only detract from the poem. I'm not in love with the poem, but I don't find its torpidity linguistic. To speak of.

I do not find a single reference to catholic school. No nuns appear

On the other hand, there is no reference to "girls" either. The poem only says "when she / and her sisters draw near."

Ted's contention under angry young man's toppost, is that the words encompass both girls and nuns.

She's mean and she's evil like an old bole weevil-
Doc Pomus

I didn't go to Catholic school, most though not all of the nuns I've met were Buddhist, but I'd love to hear Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Sister Sledge sing "Sisters of Mercy". I tend not to see things in black and white but if there are nuns in this poem it must be black and white so they're camoflaged because as far as I can see "no nuns appear". Unless they've been reincarnated from last week's discussion. ;)

I second that, Falcon. I believe that the poet seeks to engender a response by using a common, shared perception of monasticism – a myth, if you prefer. I’m not sure this is lazy in a context that does not attempt in any way to present historical accuracy.

Grosel's are not generalized mentions of religious-y things. Instead, taken together, they're specific nods that point a clear reference to catholicism:

monk
rosary,
beaded mysteries —joyful, sorrowful, and glorious.
monasticism
rites and rituals
the laying on of hands,
catechism
loss and redemption,
ceremonies
judgment
exile,
liturgy
rite
convert.

The problem is not that Grosel is ironic, scoffing or malicious. The problem is that he cops to stereotype short-hand. It's one-dimensional thinking translated to flat language.

I do appreciate, though, the option to read easy monasticism as a focused study of the cards in front of him. I think it's a broader and brighter reading than basic celibacy.

for the record, I don't see nuns either. Hence my overlong apologetic above. Catholic nuns just can't fit into the details Grosel has presented.

Hi waltz,

I rather think you're overreacting here -- understandably so given your many-layered Catholic context, but I don't think you've made your case against the poem. Rather, I think the fact that Grosel doesn't try to hone his metaphors too finely against the deeper context of Catholicism or Catholic school is a virtue, not a vice. For whatever reason, he takes the point of view of an outsider to that context looking in, and takes his little parable no farther than he and his fellow outsiders can understand that context. So much the better, I say -- it keeps the poem from being what so many of the Tuesday Poems so obviously are (blatantly pretentious).

Let me take an angle on this poem from my own experience in a parallel area. There has been a rumor going around for decades (literally) that Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" is actually a metaphorical commentary on my own religious context as it existed when the song was written. In a biographical paperback on Led Zeppelin that I once skimmed, the claim is made that the song really reflects the famous old book The Faerie Queene, but there are exactly two lines in the song that would fit that context with any precision. All the others -- some very strikingly so -- fit my religious context (and/or how outsiders perceived it) and nothing else in the popular culture of the time. The song is an outsider's point of view on a deep context, but you don't see me overreacting to it or its flagrant misrepresentations of some of that context. Mostly I find them amusing. That probably explains most of my self-restraint; it's hard for me to hate what I find hilarious.

At least this poem -- and here I speak as a fellow outsider to your own world! -- doesn't seem to be too flagrant in its overgeneralizations. It would benefit from thinking some of them through more -- if laziness is involved, then really it lies in stopping with the second draft when one or two more drafts would've done the trick. I think the basic idea of the poem is sound and worth following through.

And perhaps strangely enough from your point of view, I have no trouble connecting emotionally with either the Catholic-school imagery or the D&D imagery, even though I am such a decided outsider to both worlds. (Maybe it's because being an outsider, I can see the forest in spite of the trees.) Connecting with a ten-year-old's awakening sexuality (something beginning to overcome even a ten-year-old's love of gaming) is somethng I have no trouble with at all, and to me it is by far the most charming part of the poem.

For what it's worth,
wr ()()

then really it lies in stopping with the second draft when one or two more drafts would've done the trick.

WR, I can't comment on what the poem might have been. I can only comment on the piece as it's presented. One can assume that Tuesday poets don't look to PF boards to workshop their poems. Instead, one can assume what's presented is the finished thing.

As for your religious context and Led Zeppelin, my argument is this: Misrepresentation wasn't my complaint. Sloppy cliche and basic inconsistencies were. The religious context to which you linked seems far less mainstream and as such, is safe from cliched references.

So much the better, I say -- it keeps the poem from being what so many of the Tuesday Poems so obviously are (blatantly pretentious).

That's true, Rabbit. But are you satisfied that, once again, the poem merely doesn't suck? It could be worse is hardly a recommendation.

Now that you got me to the OPP, dude, I left a few poems of my own there. Please have a look. Please critique. Be as cruel as you must be.

Thanks.