Tea with Ayn Rand

[dillingworth]

Tea with Ayn Rand

On a damp Tuesday afternoon
in Wolverhampton,
I went for tea with Ayn Rand.

I imagined her in a train guard’s uniform
in the cab of the John Galt Express,
puffing her way to Colorado.

She’d look quite sexy, I thought to myself,
with a smudge of coal on her cheek
and a stray lock of hair on her shoulder.

No such luck: the train we had run for
was cancelled - signal failure -
and not a ruthless industrialist in sight.

When the pot arrived I asked her:
do you think Wolverhampton is ready
for objectivist cleaners in Tesco’s?

I’m sure they’d do a thorough job,
but the unions may object
to ultra-capitalist pamphlets in the locker rooms.

Ayn took a sip of Earl Grey
and shrugged the sigh of the author:
she’d the weight of the world on her shoulders.

I asked her if she’d like a bite to eat,
my treat. The air turned frosty:
Ayn never accepts a charitable scone.

She lives by the sign of the dollar, she said:
she swore never to live for another,
nor to ask for another to live for her sake.

Baked goods given or received
on the basis of impotent altruism
were off limits, she said. Especially scones.

The man who came to take the bill
(which we split)
was strangely familiar:

he had the air of a philosopher,
of one, like Ayn, who’d argue with vigour
that tipping is tantamount to heresy.

Revolutions have to start somewhere
and that teashop was as good as any,
if you’re Ayn Rand, it’s a wet Tuesday
and you’ve missed the 1436 to Telford.

[Mr. Madeleine]

The title attracted me instantly. Rand's The Fountainhead has got to be one of the finest novels ever, imnsho. You've painted the scene well with just the right amount of visuals (and the taste of Earl Grey) and the smooth flow kept me going at an agreeable pace. My only nit, if that is one, is that I wanted to read more. Ayn Rand sure is one person I'd love to have a chat with.

[rushme]

like the stanza:

Ayn took a sip of Earl Grey
and shrugged the sigh of the author:
she’d the weight of the world on her shoulders.

refering to 'atlas shrugged'

how about adding some more zest & vigour? for such a powerful writer this appears quite tame.

[Wabznasm]

Dill, nice to see you return.

Just a quick comment because I've got things to run to:

I liked the imagination in this, and think thi reimagining of people a valuable and contemporary form of writing. The humour is necessary too. I feel there are one or two dud stanzas in an otherwise strong poem.

Ayn looked out of the fuggy shop window
onto the puddled streets,
the steel mills glowing red in the distance. -- the poem is strongest when it is quick, surprising and odd, and I just think this stanza is a poet's stannza and doesn't have a place in the poem. The poem is about Ayn Rand, and this is a little too 'Look at the fireworks I ccan pull off'.

Ayn took a sip of Earl Grey
and shrugged the sigh of the author:
she’d the weight of the world on her shoulders. -- you've obviously enjoying the demystification of the author throughout the poem, making Rand seemd occasionally ridiculous, and fictionalising her entirely. So why drop in a sincere reverence for the author? Is it incongruous? Is it necessary? This worships Rand too much in a poem which enjoys pissing about with her (with a great deal of respect, of course).

And then I thought: what if it’s begun?
What if this innocent cup of tea
is the start of a revolution?. -- I think you could scratch this out entirely. It's make the intent too obvious, and the final stanza communicates this sense of revolution far more effectively (and interestingly) than this does.

It's odd that I'm suggesting to chuck out whole chunks, but I think without them this'd be great.

Dave

[David]

This is great, dill. I smiled throughout. I think your unRand-like and Wolver'amptonesque details are excellent.

Cheers

David

[dillingworth]

thanks all. i've edited as suggested, though i left in the "weight of the world on her shoulders" stanza - supposed to be a pun on "atlas shrugged", her most famous novel.

[Ros]

Very much enjoyed the revision. I don't know the author in question, but I'm getting a wonderful portrait of her character. It's not always easy to appreciate a poem when you don't understand the subject, but here it really works. Favourite verse:

Baked goods given or received
on the basis of impotent altruism
were off limits, she said. Especially scones

and a good ending.

Ros