The operative line in the poem she posted today is about selling yourself, “as we all do, as best we can.”
A startling comment inserted deep into the body, something utterly obvious, yet surprising at the same time.
This is not a new concept for her, since she has spent a life time selling herself well enough to get in the front door.
But in this case, she may have overstepped a little, seeking to graduate from our pissant little world into perhaps the most prestigious publication in the world.
After all of her boasting about our office being a stepping stone, her applying for a job at The New York Times should not have come as a surprise.
The poem depicts her journey to The New York Times building, although the opening details the largely defunct former Times headquarters at One Times Square, taken over by numerous corporate entities after the Times abandoned it, only for it become a largely vacant shell of what it had once been, the exterior turned into a billboard magnet and an on-and-off ticket tape display after the Times moved its offices down the street from it, recently constructing a palace on 8th Avenue directly across the street from the Port Authority building.
She walked straight in, passed the ticket tape and advertising for turkey into the iconic building of her “childhood scribbled dreams,” with all the great and near grate in gilt frame on gilt walls.
This is not a depiction of the interior of One Times Square I recall from my visits there during that brief stint when Newsday occupied the premises but may well reflect The New York Times palace I’ve seen only from the outside or in published photographs.
But she describes walking beneath the giant Christmas wreath, which is typically hung over the front door of the palace on 8th Avenue, up a golden escalator to a room on the 13th floor where people go to wait and “to think before to sell yourself in a short time, as we all do as best, we can.”
This implies an interview in which she had to make her case as to why she thought she deserved a place in the most prestigious of publications.
She hears the sound of “the best of the best” working elsewhere in the building around her, and hears in her head “I belong here,” ringing strongly and calmly above it all.
No doubt, someone encouraged her to apply, most likely our former temporary boss, who likely promised to serve as her reference if she did. While she had no journalism degree, she had graduated from one of the most prestigious universities in New York, and her writing is as good perhaps better than much of what appears each day in that newspaper. Indeed, others from our petty little world had made the transition to the Times before her, so, why not her?
This pending interview may explain her last poem about a temporary lull, and how she did not see her new found position in the city as a place she would eventually end up permanently. She did tell The Small Man (and others) that she had big plans, something the office gossip repeated to me.
The central question of the poem is whether or not she can sell herself well enough to get her foot in the door.
The poem has a subtext that may or may not be intentional, negative words giving a negative connotation, such as the use of “Crashed” when referring to the ticker tape report, and the repeated word “gilt” which might well be taken for “guilt,” and the sense that deep down she may not believe she deserves this opportunity, and envisions an eventual crash. The use of 13th floor in a city where many of the buildings deliberately exclude them as bad luck also suggest some level of inner doubt. Although at one point, she questions why she does not have the usual doubts, and the nervousness, and questions why she isn’t telling herself “You don’t belong here,” after years of being undersold and underpaid.
On the surface of the poem, she implies confidence the subtext denies, as she tells herself that she doesn’t belong there. But it is an unconvincing argument that the underlying negative tone negates.
She might well be talented enough to work there, and yet, there seems to be something that holds her back, the “gilt” frames in which her picture will never appear, and the gilt walls she may only get to see once.
By this, I don’t mean her any ill luck. I sincerely hope the Times hires her. All the doubt is in the context of the poem, even when she asks herself why it isn’t there, when by asking, she implies that the doubt is there after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment