Poem: The Bar

[alee_grrl]

Poetry, because my brain is itching to do something besides panic. I'm driving down to Norfolk on Monday. The essay/short answer portion of test is on Tuesday, and multiple Choice sections on Wednesday. I'll return home on Thursday.

Over at poetree there has been some fabulous posts this week on exploring politics through poetry, including raze's wonderful exploration of jazz poetry and Langston Hughes. You might say that this poem was inspired by that post and jazz poetry.

This is a little rough in spots, and I'm not sure about the fourth and fifth stanzas.

The Bar

Belly up to the bar
throat exposed
vulnerable
I submit myself
my knowledge
my hopes
my three and a half years of debt
a house deferred
converted
a new mode of thinking
all bow before the Board

Countless bars reviewed
by my peers and I
and we all long for more
drinks and thinks
anything to settle our nerves
quiet our minds
and we are nothing
but water and the echo
of heartbeats loud
in our plugged ears

The bar is set high
our expectations raised
from the day we set foot on campus
through endless long weeks
of prep and study
the hardest test of your life
they tell us
you'll have to draw
bright line rules despite
being taught only shades of gray
rules and subjects crammed
running together
overriding one another
and the chaos of your brain
beautiful
terrifying
you just need a 'D' to pass
you can take the test again
as many times
as you can afford

Only health, poverty, and fear
truly and completely bar people
from becoming lawyers
there is no equity
no justice in this
so we do our best
despite our health
we take out loans
we try
to breath
through our fear

Pass the bar
then reach out
and back
and help others
pass it too


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Comments

[jjhunter]

may Gumby be with you
may ginger lemon tea ease you
may mints restore you
may poetry feed you
and may bar have mercy on your health

(hang in there!)

[alee_grrl]

All of those things have greatly cheered me in the last few days. Thank you again for such a lovely care package.

[calissa]

<3

[calissa]

Thank you for sharing this. I love the way you've used multiple meanings of the word 'bar' here.. I think the fourth stanza connects in well with the third. I'm not as sure about the last one, but it ends the poem on a hopeful note and I like that.

I've just realised that you are probably driving out now, so you may not see this in time. But good luck! I will be thinking of you.

[alee_grrl]

Thank you so much for the feedback and the well wishes! I really wanted to play with the different meanings of the word "bar" and I'm glad that came through. I am also glad that I ended it on a hopeful note, because otherwise it is just kind of depressing.

I'm all settled into my hotel and have had dinner. Going to go run a bath and curl up with a movie or book for a while. Thank you again for the well wishes.

[calissa]

The different uses of the word 'rule' in the third stanza also made me smile.

Sounds divine! I hope you have a wonderful evening and good luck for tomorrow and Wednesday!

[raze]

Oooh, so glad I finally had time to read this. I love the way you utilized "bar" throughout the poem to represent different meanings. And you captured the feel of jazz poetry beautifully! I'm so pleased you stepped up to the reader challenge - and batted it out of the park :)

[alee_grrl]

Thank you! I love jazz and jazz poetry so it was a wonderful challenge for me. I really had fun playing with the different meanings of bar, and the poem was fairly cathartic to write. :) I may try my hand at recording this one at some point. Would be very fun to perform. Thank you for the inspiring post and challenge.