I have heard that adolescence is a recent invention,
A by-product of progress, one of Capitalism’s
Suspended transitions between one state and another,
Like refugee camps, internment camps, like the Fields
Of Concentration in a campus catalogue. Summer
Camps for teenagers. When I was quite young
My miscomprehension was that “Concentration Camp”
Meant where the scorned were admonished to concentrate,
Humiliated: forbidden to let the mind wander away.
“Concentration” seemed just the kind of punitive euphemism
The adult world used to coerce, like the word “Citizenship”
On the report cards, graded along with disciplines like History,
English, Mathematics. Citizenship was a field or
Discipline in which for certain years I was awarded every
Marking period a “D,” meaning Poor. Possibly my first political
Emotion was wishing they would call it Conduct, or Deportment.
The indefinitely suspended transition of the refugee camps
Must be a poor kind of refuge—subjected to capricious
Kindness and requirements and brutality, the unchampioned
Refugees kept between childhood and adulthood, having neither.
In the Holy Land, for example, or in Mother Africa.
At that same time of my life when I heard the abbreviation
“DP” for Displaced Person I somehow mixed it up with
“DT’s” for Delirium Tremens, both a kind of stumbling called
By a childish nickname. And you, my poem, you are like
An adolescent: confused, awkward, self-preoccupied, vaguely
Rebellious in a way that lacks practical focus, moving without
Discipline from thing to thing. Do you disrespect Authority merely
Because it speaks so badly, because it deploys the lethal bromides
With a clumsy conviction that offends your delicate senses?—but if
Called on to argue such matters as the refugees you mumble and
Stammer, poor citizen, you get sullen, you sigh and look away.
—Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky was the Poet Laureate of the United States for three years, during which time he developed the Favorite Poem project. His most recent book of poems is Jersey Rain.
