Review of Rena Priest’s poem ‘The Index’

 Review of  Rena Priest’s poem ‘The Index’

The poem reads like a science fiction. There was a treaty in the ‘dawn of time’ on how the meek are going to inherit the earth. The poem harps only around the equations between the meek and the others. An agreement based on the treaty was ‘in spiritual records.’ When there is going to be an equation on power, and the inheritance, and the price for remaining in the earth or leaving it, there has got to be an index for the resources; of course, the index are with stronger because they only have almost everything. The index certainly goes deep into how the ancestors of some people got it, and in other cases, how they amassed it themselves. But the manner in which wealth was amassed doesn’t matter. In fact, a repetition or overemphasis is seen in the following stanzas:

The index will show how you came by your fortune:

If you murdered, trafficked or exploited the vulnerable,

stole, embezzled, poisoned, cheated, swindled,

or otherwise subdued nature to come by wealth

great enough to afford passage to the new earth;

if your ancestors did these things and you’ve done nothing

to benefit from their crimes yet do nothing to atone

through returning inherited wealth to the greater good

you shall be granted passage. It was agreed.

Certainly the above stanzas needed to be more subtle and a tone of overemphasis and repetition must have been avoided. I find often an author or poet gets carried away with a wonderful theme. The excitement mars the aesthetics and depth in the output. Still this poem ends with few questions:

Do meek have the knowledge and skills to run the show in absence of the strong?

Can meekness be shed and strength imbibed?

Who among the meek will be chosen to gain strength?

Or will such an exercise itself expose the stronger ones who grab power and riches left behind by the strong?

Is strength just a trait? Does it include the support from the likeminded and the aspirants who want to work from background?

When materialistic index is applied to strength then won’t there be any ethical yardstick on the means to riches?

The poet’s success is in provoking a thought process on these complex questions.