TONY: You have the most fascinating brain I’ve ever had the privilege to encounter.
TATI: Nice start, Tony. Go on.
TONY: Erm…
TATI: How’s your head, by the way? It wasn’t a concussion, I hope?
TONY: The doctor said you hadn’t hit me that hard after all, and that I should stop being a whimpersome girly-boy.
TATI: Good boy. All you need to do is wise up and don’t repeat that painful experience from our previous discussion. There is a reason we discarded it, after all.
TONY: So now we’re having an entirely new discussion for the purposes of this post. Oh yeah, I totally get it now.
TATI: Let’s go then.
TONY: Erm. Well. I wanted to discuss a particular poem with you.
TATI: What poem?
TONY: It’s called ‘how to explain life to a live girl’.
TATI: I remember this one. Do you hesitate to call it ‘poetry’?
TONY: Oh, no, I definitely think it’s poetry. It’s just that… well, a dead hare?
TATI: Yes, hares die sometimes. Sad, but true.
TONY: Well, sure, but what is the poem about? It seems to be about a dead hare, some strange yellow substance that could be honey or gold paint, and some dude called Beuys.
TATI: Do you know who this is, Tony?
TONY: Is it a ‘Harry Potter’ character?
TATI: Are you serious?!
TONY: No? From ‘Hunger Games’ then.
TATI: I don’t think the poet should have to explain to the reader each and every reference.
TONY: ’50 Shades of Grey’?
TATI: Yuck! If you, the reader, really cared then you could have dived into the poem to understand what the author wanted to say here or there. You could have educated yourself.
TONY: There are too many books in those series. You expect me to read all of them?
TATI: If you don’t understand something, you need to google it or at the very least try to think of your own interpretation. Don’t you have an imagination?
TONY: Maybe It’s a recipe for honey-roasted bunnies. Maybe that’s what you wrote.
TATI: That is one interpretation, I suppose. It isn’t necessary for it to be the same as what the author implied.
TONY: So, I’m wrong?
TATI: Don’t you know anything about the magic of poetry?! You are not meant to make a school book report from it, and you don’t ask the author to explain each and every detail to you!
TONY: Why not?
TATI: If James Joyce had tried to explain ‘Ulysses’ to each and every idiot, would the novel have been listed in the Bokklubben World Library amongst its one hundred best books ever? I bet no. They would have dismissed him as another graphomaniac who wastes valuable paper instead of increasing the GDP of Ireland!
TONY: But nobody understands that book! Are you saying that in order to write greatness that whatever one writes must be completely incomprehensible? I expect you’ll be awarded the Booker Prize any day then!
TATI: Seriously, Tony, I am not going to sit here and explain to you who Beuys is. Nor will I explain about his performance ‘How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare’ and other shit. And you should be saying thank you to me because I am doing you a huge favour! I’m giving you a chance to grow and educate yourself!
TONY: True. Sounds like it was boring and pretentious.
TATI: Cool. Then I propose to go back to what we were doing before you started this discussion. You can nap and play video games, and I will sit here and continue to read this idiotic book.
TONY: ‘Ulysses’?!
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020
