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Odd One Out
Moored to the screen, he barely gets involved
In vapid, paltry things his workmates seem
To swap their saneness for—magnetic schemes
On end-of-season sales—their worlds revolve
Around the dernier cri. Apparels solve
Life problems; flat discounts project a gleam
Upon their cheeks. And he, much like the ream
Of sheets, lies still, attempting to dissolve
Their high excitement needling through his head.
Good novels, art, or cinema don’t attract
Their megacity-tailored minds. Instead
Of fuming, he endures their loud impact;
At times, he feigns involvement or they’ll doubt
His town-grown soul; deem him the odd one out.
.
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Shamik Banerjee is a poet from Assam, India, where he resides with his parents. His poems have been published by Sparks of Calliope, The Hypertexts, Snakeskin, Ink Sweat & Tears, Autumn Sky Daily, Ekstasis, among others. He received second place in the Southern Shakespeare Company Sonnet Contest, 2024.
Shamik, I enjoyed what I think (after a 3rd reading) is the ambiguity in your sonnet – whether the man’s workmates are more to be pitied for their vapid obsessions, or whether he himself is for being glued to a screen and incapable of real interactions with others (sort of an “Underground Man” type). Also, thanks for teaching me a new phrase, “dernier cri”.
This piece is interesting, because it shows how a 14-line sonnet, despite its brevity, can be a vehicle for drama. Too many sonnets are just expressions of emotion, or plangent complaints, or declamatory judgments. Here the poet presents the speaker and his workmates as a small group employed in a clothing business. The speaker distinguishes himself from the others, and from their interest in “vapid, paltry things,” which seem to be sales, discounts, apparel, fashion trends, and the like.
The speaker is bored by all of this, and has a higher interest in the arts. He has little respect for the minds and the tastes of his colleagues, but he cannot stay too aloof from them, or show his contempt for their enthusiasms. If he did so, he would be ostracized or shunned. So what we are given is a drama with unrelieved tension. Will he get into a fight? Will he get fired? Will he quit in disgust? We never learn what happens.
This as a snapshot of existence in a commercial concern, where everyone is expected to be caught up in the upbeat business atmosphere of the place, and be “on the team” or “with the program,” to use two of the most dreary expressions of corporate life. Employees who are there only for the salary (because they have more important and compelling interests in life) are looked upon as “odd” or “disloyal” or “not giving their all” for the company.
The words “Moored to the screen” suggest to me that the speaker is devoted to the nuts-and-bolts of his job, which might involve keeping records and accounts on a computer, or connecting with suppliers and buyers. But another interpretation is that the speaker is addicted to following his own interests on the internet, rather than paying attention to the things that his co-workers are involved in. How you as a reader take these words will determine what kind of judgment you will make about the speaker.
This sonnet expresses the artistic soul of one caught in a mundane world observing the excitement of others immersed in the small thrills offered by a work environment in a factory or store. Most of us have been stuck there or still are until we can realize the rewards of creativity in the arts. Well done.
Yes, very well done. As Roy said, I think a lot of us can identify with the feeling that creative types have in a non-creative workplace. I like the sonnet’s somewhat unusual rhyming scheme, too.
Wish I had someone to share this with.
‘Moored to the screen’; ‘flat discounts project a gleam / Upon their cheeks’; megacity-tailored minds’. What great images!
I like this poem for its vividness, its message and its occasional ambiguity that draws the reader in.
Thanks for the read, Shamik.
Shamik,
The comments above are all very helpful in drawing attention to various details in your poem that facilitate an understanding of its theme. Your poem describes a setting in which many creative types often find themselves, whether in the school or in the workplace, as they look at life through different eyes than the multitudes whose sole interest is in the acquisition of material things and the passing fashions of popular culture. The competitive environment of the corporate world, with its constant focus on numbers, statistics, growth charts, sales schemes, etc., its insistence (as Dr. Salemi points out) that all in the company be “on the team” and “with the program”, subtly implying that one must give, not only one´s time and work hours, but one´s very heart and soul to pursuing the economic interests of the company– all this seems designed to crush, not only human individuality, but all higher interests, aspirations, and endeavors that belong to a different plane altogether than the materialistic plane of the corporate world.
The difficulty of poetic souls “fitting in” to a world consumed with mundane interests and pursuits is here communicated skillfully with keen observation, understatement, and a measure of “suggestive” ambiguity– as others have pointed out– which is a characteristic feature of your poems. This poem also explores what seems to be another common theme in your writing, which is the effect of modernity invading every aspect of life and uprooting the older, cherished values, warm human interactions, and easier pace of living associated with small town community life.
Save for the concluding heroic couplet and the dactylic “cinema”, this is a conventional Petrarchan sonnet, perfectly capturing the gloomy isolation of an educated person ekeing out a twilit existence in a call-centre. Highly commendable.
This poem could represent co-workers in any business with screens in the workplace–that is, almost any business today. The “odd one out” could be the real worker in the group, earning his salary as the others think about fashionable ways to spend theirs. Because apparel solves life’s problems for them, I can’t see that they work enthusiastically for a clothing business and hope to increase its profits. That would at least be practical sanity, contributing to their job security. But the “odd one” sees them as having swapped saneness for paltry things of interest to “megacity-tailored minds.” That expression indicates clothing as the crazy way persons whose very minds are “tailored” find their sameness in following the “dernier cri” of fashion (good use of French words to suggest Paris as fashion’s global centre). They are individuals without response to art, unlike the protagonist, whose soul is “grown,” not tailored, on the more human scale of a town. He also shows his humanity in occasional attempts to manifest participation in the unjustified excitement of his colleagues, and maintain a minimal community with them, despite their interests “needling” him. Shamik, this sonnet dramatizing the subtle psychology among co-workers (one of whom is a cultured soul seemingly aching for like companions) is a profound one in both thought and painstaking use of language.
This is a remarkably well-crafted sonnet. I echo the previous comments: you give us a drama, complete with developed characters, in a fourteen-line sonnet without any dialogue. I also add that you adapt a tried-and-true classical form to contemporary life, and the poem loses nothing from it. In fact, the traditional form enriches the subject, with its turns providing a guiding-line for the drama. I enjoyed this very much.