Appearance Versus Reality

In Rankine “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely” she examines modern culture in light of modernization and its flaws, including consumerism, the desire to categorize, isolation due to technological advancement, a loss of individualism, appearance versus reality, etc. Within one particular section she examines 9/11 and how “the language of description competes with the dead in the air,” which permits one to see how, for modern peoples, a representational version of something overtakes the predicament’s reality (82). One cannot comprehend the sentiments and emotional responses of those involved through the narrow lens of a representational view. Because her poem employs a close examination of society via sensory approach (e.g., “my eyes burn and tear”), it upholds the Whitmanian tradition in some sense; however, Rankine differs from Whitman in her largely negative view of human nature, and as she utilizes the prose poem form, in lieu of Whitman free-form, chant-like lines, to pinpoint the human desire to “categorize” stories and to limit them to lines or representational views (82).

Also, as each event becomes produced for television and news coverage, it becomes better known the reality of the event. In effect, stories become prone to distortions, demonstrated by statements such as how the photographs become “faded” and how “ink runs off” posters of missing peoples (82). Also, one does not develop an understanding of the emotional responses of those whom experienced the events. Even the rescue workers themselves endure emotional deadening within the “dim light,” which indicates how even one’s individual experience cannot become equated with another, due to individual nature of grief (82).

This reminds me of Matthea Harvey’s If Tabloids Are True What are You? in which she utilizes similar prose poems to highlight the human desire to categorize; in one of her poems, she examines how a simulacrum of dolls become prominent enough to supersede the original. Similarly, Harvey’s poem paints a picture of understanding from the outside, and how a news story fails to replicate an event, cannot account for emotional responses, and both contributes excess and removes pertinent details. One can see how Rankine’s poems prove similar to Sphar’s as well, in her discussion of 9/11; for Sphar, people seek protection through human connectedness, while for Rankine, human isolation occurs in the midst of detriment, due to the nature of modernization.

As in the first poem, which states “people only died on television,” Rankine examines 9/11 in light of problems inherent in modernization, and how one cannot account for another’s understanding; this rejects Whitman’s free verse form for that of a structured one, such as in a tailored news clipping, yet it proves similar to Whitman in that it examines society through the senses, such as how smog pervades the air (5).