Red Shift

Jonathan Bastos 9/16/08


Red Shift


In the Poem “Red Shift” Ted Berrigan seems to suggest that a lot has happened in his life. It consists of his inspirations, his love, and his downfall. All of these are things that he will always remember.

He starts the poem off with the time of day and goes on to explain the weather. Ted mentions “American poison liquid air” this refers to an alcoholic beverage. Berrigan mentions 2 people in the next couple of lines, “Allen is a movie, Frank disappearing in the air”. Allen was actually a poet who was around before Ted. His name was Allen Ginsberg. The other person is Frank O’Hara. Barrigan’s is known as Frank’s precursor. In these lines it shows how both of these writers have come and gone. As I went deeper into the poem Ted takes us back in time. He goes on to say, “Love, children, hundreds of them, money, marriage, a politics of grace”. These were probably things he wanted but never achieved. The man looking at the “attentive woman” was him. Ted most likely fell in love with this girl.

Berrigan later goes on to say, “When will I die? I will never die” he is telling people that he will live on through his writing. In the next line he is expressing his anger towards another. “You will never escape from me…” its as if he will never let this woman go no matter what happens, whether he is with her or not. “I’m only pronouns and I am all of them…” A pronoun is a substitute for nouns. I have a feeling he started falling deeper into his writing at this point in his life, he probably felt like it was all he had left. “Alone and crowded, unhappy fate …” Barrigan is basically fed up with his life especially how it turned out.

With this poem Ted Barrigan brings everybody into his shoes. He does a great job of getting everybody to ask themselves, “What is he talking about? It may not make sense at first, but I think he wrote it like that on purpose because I think sometimes he felt the same way about his own life.

The Accident

After carefully reading the poem I stumbled upon a theory that I thought made sense. It seems to me that the woman’s husband is having an affair with the neighbor. The neighbor came over the house because the husbands’ wife invited her. The neighbor and the wife are good friends. But on lines 21-27 the mood shifted “It was when the neighbor answered “ yes” to a question the woman’s husband had not yet asked that the woman finally understood Her husband had not even mentioned eggs, but the neighbor knew he was going to cook for her. How many times had they eaten together the woman watching wondered. Enough.” The husband finally senses something’s wrong “his hands were trembling.” (line45) The fact that both women were in the room made him nervous.