The United States (by Rodney Jones)
The United States (by Rodney Jones)
Original Text
Rodney Jones, Salvation Blues: One Hundred Poems, 1985-2005 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006). This poem is reproduced on the Griffin Prize Web Site (from a volume on the 2007 International Shortlist).
1If you asked what it is all about
2I would say a field a green field
3in the turning rows a killdeer
4and after that barbed wire
5the hedge with its cardinals
6a blacktop then another field
7Corn one of the main things
8after water and before milk
9for whiskey is in it and grits
10gold for chickens pearls before swine
11there is a factory in every plant
12if we could be properly humble
13it is the greatness of the nation
14along with cartoon animation
15automobiles and rock ‘n’ roll
16jazz and basketball evolved here
17but not one other U.S. God
18just the corn’s imperial row
19on row then Sylvester Stallone
20and airbrushed Elvis thank you
21very much ladies and gentlemen
22Presley Dylan and the Supremes
23no I would say a field a vast field
24at the center top-hogs and cattle
25then art the cities New York
26Chicago Houston Seattle man
27told me last week experts can
28teach starlings to talk hell
29televangelists may yet witness
30in terza rima each stalk of corn
31contributes it has been so
32hybridized with its immense
33ears it no longer resembles
34maize it is what we have left
35to barter for oil and microchips
36tones of it siloed and elevated
37to float us through droughts
38and wars and speculations we ask
39which most cogently represents us
40Leaves of Grass or The Simpsons
41there is the idea that every
42living thing is a subset of human
43control and the other notion
44that though we may go on
45a few hundred or thousand
46years the poison has spilled
47no more land will be made
48the search for another arable
49planet may prove moot as the
50search for earthly sentience
51meanwhile this taco here
52crunches in the great scheme of
53things we persist one people one
54of the potential fates of corn
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2011