Vern Rutsala’s Poem, “Words”

Vern Rutsala’s poem, “Words,” questions the power of language enjoyed by the elites and doubts the efficacy of articulated words spoken by them to the lower class.  The speaker of the poem illustrates how the language of the elites can only convey foreign, subjective realities that not only debar the unsophisticated from their circles, but also insults their very own intelligence. For example, the use of double negative used by the commoner, “don’t have nothing” becomes “do have”by semantical logic, thereby the dispossessed effortlessly inherit whatever the elites point to or attempt to explicate. In short, this poem “acknowledges both the paradoxical affirmation of American slang as well as the national spirit–its dreams and failures, but above all its resilience–suffusing it” (The Washington Post, Rita Dove; 2000, Dec 10; Page X12)

Words

We had more than
we could use.
They embarrassed us,
our talk fuller than our
rooms. They named
nothing we could see–
dining room, study,
mantel piece, lobster
thermidor. They named
things you only
saw in movies–
the thin flicker Friday
nights that made us
feel empty in the cold
as we walked home
through our only great
abundance, snow.
This is why we said ‘ain’t’
and ‘he don’t.’
We wanted words to fit
our cold linoleum,
our oil lamps, our
outhouse. We knew
better but it was wrong
to use a language
that named ghosts,
nothing you could touch.
We left such words at school
locked in books
where they belonged.
It was the vocabulary
of our lives that was
so thin. We knew this
and grew to hate
all the words that named
the vacancy of our rooms–
looking here we said
studio couch and saw cot;
looking there we said
venetian blinds and saw only the yard;
brick meant tarpaper,
fireplace meant wood stove.
And this is why we came to love
the double negative.

(“Words” reprinted from “Walking Home From the Icehouse.” Copyright {copy} 1981 by Vern Rutsala. Carnegie-Mellon University Press.)