Why This Poem Works: “How to Like It” by Stephen Dobyns
The Two Sides of Life
I’ve got a pretty interesting life right now. Half the time I work with little kids at a Forest School, and the other half of the time I teach creative writing and poetry to adults, some of whom are much older than I am, at The Poetry Salon.
A few days ago I was taking a group of four year olds to the marina at the lake and one of the girls kept turning around to tell me about what we were going to see.
“Aren’t you excited to see the turtles?” She asked, “and the snakes? And aren’t you excited to see the bear?” Then she asked again, “aren’t you excited?”
And I was excited. I love turtles and snakes and bear. But I also knew that I wasn’t nearly as excited as she was. At this age I’ve seen the turtles and snakes and bear and I can’t muster as much enthusiasm as I had for them at her age. To be honest, I’ve got other things on my mind. I’ve got regrets, and mistakes I’ve made. I’ve got memories and messes I need to clean up. These things weigh me down, even when I’m looking at aquatic life.
Plus, I’m getting older. I know now in a way I didn’t understand at four years old that my time is limited. There’s still so much I want to do and I’m trying to figure out how to get it all done while there is still time. I feel constantly this push pull between two parts of myself, the part that wants to get excited with the kids, and the part that is starting to feel a severe sense of melancholy. To be honest, I’ve felt this intense push-pull most of my life.
This is why, of all the poems I’ve ever read, my favorite has to be “How to Like it, by Stephen Dobyns.” If you don’t know this poem, allow me to introduce it to you now.
How To Like It These are the first days of fall. The wind at evening smells of roads still to be traveled, while the sound of leaves blowing across the lawns is like an unsettled feeling in the blood, the desire to get in a car and just keep driving. A man and a dog descend their front steps. The dog says, Let's go downtown and get crazy drunk. Let's tip over all the trash cans we can find. This is how dogs deal with the prospect of change. But in his sense of the season, the man is struck by the oppressiveness of his past, how his memories which were shifting and fluid have grown more solid until it seems he can see remembered faces caught up among the dark places in the trees. The dog says, Let's pick up some girls and just rip off their clothes. Let's dig holes everywhere. Above his house, the man notices wisps of cloud crossing the face of the moon. Like in a movie, he says to himself, a movie about a person leaving on a journey. He looks down the street to the hills outside of town and finds the cut where the road heads north. He thinks of driving on that road and the dusty smell of the car heater, which hasn't been used since last winter. The dog says, Let's go down to the diner and sniff people's legs. Let's stuff ourselves on burgers. In the man's mind, the road is empty and dark. Pine trees press down to the edge of the shoulder, where the eyes of animals, fixed in his headlights, shine like small cautions against the night. Sometimes a passing truck makes his whole car shake. The dog says, Let's go to sleep. Let's lie down by the fire and put our tails over our noses. But the man wants to drive all night, crossing one state line after another, and never stop until the sun creeps into his rearview mirror. Then he'll pull over and rest awhile before starting again, and at dusk he'll crest a hill and there, filling a valley, will be the lights of a city entirely new to him. But the dog says, Let's just go back inside. Let's not do anything tonight. So they walk back up the sidewalk to the front steps. How is it possible to want so many things and still want nothing. The man wants to sleep and wants to hit his head again and again against a wall. Why is it all so difficult? But the dog says, Let's go make a sandwich. Let's make the tallest sandwich anyone's ever seen. And that's what they do and that's where the man's wife finds him, staring into the refrigerator as if into the place where the answers are kept- the ones telling why you get up in the morning and how it is possible to sleep at night, answers to what comes next and how to like it. --Stephen Dobyns, From VELOCITIES: NEW & SELECTED POEMS (Penguin, 1994)
The Past, The Future and The Moment
The poem is a dialectic between a man and a dog. The man is pondering his mortality.
These are the first days of autumn he notes, signaling changing of seasons and also an entrance into the end of the year. It’s clear the man is dealing with a sense of his own mortality. His memories are starting to become solid, he realizes he is living with regret. He wants to just get in the car and drive. This, I think, represents the melancholy aspect of being alive, being fully aware of our mortality. Incidentally, this idea of a road trip is also how I tend to deal with any problem I have. I think I can just get on the road and escape whatever melancholy I’m feeling.
We could take the road trip somewhat literally. The man just wants to get away and see the world. In this case the road may also represent the final journey, i.e. the journey towards and through death. The man envisions entering a city full of light he has never seen before. Could this be a hint towards heaven?
The dog has different ways of dealing with change. The dog seems to be pure id. It is all about the pleasures of the body, the libido. He wants to sniff legs and knock over trash cans and tear the clothes off of women.
The man and dog go back and forth with competing desires until the dog suggests making the biggest sandwich in the world and that’s where the two of them meet, at the sandwich. The man’s id with all of its corporeal desires and lusts and his internal monologue with all of its melancholy, agree on something. They want a sandwich. Compared to all of the other desires the two voices have expressed, going on a road trip, going downtown to knock over trash cans, the idea of just a sandwich seems small. But isn’t that the way that we live our lives? We want so many things and yet, as the poem says we also want nothing.
Sometimes you want to go out for a night on the town and have an adventure, but that seems like too much work, so you stay indoors and do something that’s less work, but still tries to satisfy you. To me that line, “How is it possible to want so many things and still want nothing” just hits the mark so hard. How many of us want to go on adventures, go out on the town, follow every impulse and craving and wild idea. Yet, that kind of living can be exhausting. Ultimately it can’t fulfill you and you realize that eventually you are going to have to face the end of your life no matter how exciting or excited you are. So you also want nothing. You maybe don’t want to take part in any of it. You just want to stay inside and take a nap. But that would mean not participating in life at all.
So, the sandwich becomes a kind of compromise. The man and dog agree to feed themselves, which isn’t as exciting on the surface as the road trip or the trip down town, but it isn’t nothing either.
When we get to that line, about the man’s wife finding him, it’s an interesting change of perspective. We get someone who is maybe slightly more objective, who sees both the man and dog as unified, and they are both looking into the fridge “as if for the answers.” The ultimate question of course is “what comes next and how to like it.”
For me, this is maybe the central question of living. As human beings we are aware of our mortality. We can think about what is going to happen tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow, as Shakespeare says. And that can be frightening or anxiety provoking. We’re always trying to control the future so that what happens next is something we like. Yet, no matter what happens, the ultimate destination is an ending, and the question isn’t just “how do we like what happens tomorrow” but also, how do we make peace with death? When we’re so attached to the body, how do we let it go? Also, how do you enjoy all of the pleasures of the body when you know that eventually you’re going to have to give them up?
Why This Poem Works: The Dialectical Structure
The reason this works as a poem is that it shows the dichotomy between two opposing forces.
This is a man having a quarrel with his own heart, or maybe it’s the heart quarreling with the body. But what gives the poem its drive is that it shows two forces trying to navigate with one another.
I also love just how different the forces are. The dog has its own voice that is so distinct from the man’s. The dog’s interests are so different. His cadence and rhythm. You note the man’s sentences are long and dwell on what is out there, the future, the road, the sky, the moon. He thinks it’s like a movie. It’s distant. The dog on the other hand has a concept of things that are a little closer by. He doesn’t think of anything farther away than downtown.
I’ve written before about my favorite craft book, Structure and Surprise. This would be an example of the Dialectical Structure, which is usually a back and forth between two forces and then a braiding or a meeting in the middle. How are those two forces alike or how can they be combined? How can they make peace with each other?
In this case, they make peace by making a sandwich.
Is this the answer to the problem of mortality? No. That’s another reason why the poem is so effective. If it offered an easy answer or a platitude it would land flat (for me anyway). Instead it leaves us on an image of the man and dog starring into the fridge still looking for those answers. This is more honest, since that’s where so many of us are in our lives, staring into the fridge, still looking.
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Prompt:
Think of an issue you are currently facing. It could be a simple problem like, “What should I have for dinner?” or something much more complicated like “I wonder where I will go when I die?”
How do you deal with this issue on a practical level or even on an emotional level?
Think of a character who is your opposite. How are their voices different? What are their needs? Their concerns? What images do they conjure and how are those images different? How they would deal with the situation differently?
Now try weaving those two voices together.
Have fun and see where it leads.
I hope you like it.
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