‘Parroting the Party Line’ and Other Poetry by Susan Jarvis Bryant

Wow! Three really zinging and articulate poems!

“The Chorus of Consensus” has one of those very direct and unmistakable titles that explain everything you need to know about a poem before your read the first line. As soon as I started, I could follow the poem with absolute ease through every perfectly chiselled verse. That kind of direct title is useful when writing a triolet, which is so compact.

“By Any Other Name” is a menagerie of strange fauna, and it uses its comic vocabulary to make a very solid point: lies are not truth, and unreality is not reality. The repetends (suitably varied) hit us with negations, which is what we really need today in a world where millions of persons live in self-constructed bubbles of fantasy and ideology.

“The Granny Sanitizer” is a piece that immediately forces the reader to ask a question: are we dealing here with a fictional grandmother, or a real one? My first guess was the second option, because the speaker’s voice in this poem is very angry and personal, and because the speaker mentions a visit via Zoom, and specifically refers to the Granny as a “boomer.” If I’m correct, then this Granny is one helluva tough old bird! She’s loutish, audacious, torrid, speaks gutter gab along with stinging lingo, rebel rants, barks, bitter patter, and yap. Good grief, who is this formidable old lady?

But then I thought “Perhaps this is a satirical comment on how modern parents are terrified that grandparents will corrupt a modern child — maybe with bad language, or embarrassing opinions, or their freedom of speech and thought, or anything else that doesn’t fit into a ‘utopian’ paradigm of proper and acceptable behavior.” This seems the better reading, in line with what appear to be clear satiric markers: “sanitize,” “candor, “tech-corrected,” and “brave new world.” If this is the case then we have a speaker who is an obnoxious woke modern mother, worried that her kid will be corrupted by Granny’s obsolete and disreputable ways of thinking and speaking.

I’m thankful I knew all four of my grandparents very well. They vaccinated me against the poisons of modernity.

I loved these, and I’ll take a dozen of them dipped in white chocolate. I won’t try to explain all the clever telling things the author has done here, because anyone who can read should be able to understand this for himself. The author is the ultimate aural pastry chef.

Susan, how astonishing!

Each of these poems is a treasure, Susan, in a different way. All are funny, yet all reveal a tinge of pain under the humor. My favorite by far is “The Granny Sanitizer”– which I find devastatingly bitter despite its perky language — but I will save discussion of that for last.

Your avian “Chorus of Consensus” struck me as a nefarious answer to Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room and its charming show of squawking, arguing, singing animatronic birds. Your poem takes that avian charm and demonizes it. Although many birds may be represented, you are very specific about hawks and parrots, both of which have political associations. Hawks are physically aggressive, parrots are verbally manipulative, (well-suggested by the harp and hammer) but either way they are destructive and propagandistic. It is interesting how you contrast the bird imagery with the “ensorcelled” sheep (I had to look up ensorcelled) and ultimately with the final verb “hound” which obviously has canine (wolf in sheep’s clothing?) associations. These seemingly insignificant associations which deepen the meaning of the poem’s imagery are quintessential SJB. You are a master of using words economically and yet enriching the poem with multiple layers of meaning and association.

“By Any Other Name” plays with the villanelle form superbly as you address the primacy of Truth. You do so very playfully as you run the gamut of critters which are NOT parakeets as part of the delicious wordplay through which you state what ought to be so obvious that it needs no explanation: the truth is the truth. The ideologues who treasure subjective experience over objectivity and who worship at the altar of self-gratification should be forced to read this poem every morning for breakfast. That will curl their blue hair and make them choke on their peach parfait.

“The Granny Sanitizer” is, in my view, the most ominous of the three poems because it brings the culture of censorship and canceled relationships right into the home. It is one thing to turn off the t.v. or to put adult filters on the internet or to create safe-settings on a cellphone. It is an entirely different thing to take a presumably beloved member of the family and censor what they say “for the sake of the child.” I find this insistence on a go-between censor chilling for several reasons; first, when it comes to silencing or AI-reinventing a grandparent, it bespeaks an arrogant level of control over what a child is to be exposed to and think about it when it comes to his or her own family members; second, it is astounding to me that a parent might interfere in a natural relationship in this way. Throughout history, the relationship of multiple generations of family have been encouraged and nurtured. Grandchildren should be allowed to know their grandparents – before it’s too late. I myself never got to meet three out of four grandparents, all of whom predeceased me. To contemplate them being alive but being shut out of my life by my parents would make me completely question my parents’ judgment and good faith. Relationships in our sordid, selfish age have become too cheap and disposable. Unless abuse or neglect are part of the picture, a grandchild should be allowed access to the grandparents.

“A utopian cyber experience”? Only in the most Orwellian sense. How sad this poem makes me despite the artificially rosy language. It is a very short leap from “sanitize” to “sterilize.”

Thank you for these wonderful poems, Susan, which though unhappy in theme are splendidly poetic — so much so that the darkness may seem far less dark through your joyful use of language.