"The Palace" The Place Where I Wish to Be

“The Palace”

By Kaveh Akbar

Poetry, where emotion that has found its thinking and the thinking that has found words come to meet. That which is composed of ideas, nerves, and emotions, all bound together by the fragile yet resilient skin of words. The abandoned child of solitude, never quite do the words do justice to the experience underlying them. That is all poetry, and much more. A poet is, above all things, a person who is infatuated with language. I want to be like a poet; I want to inhale the wisdom of experience and exhale the beauty of poetry. I would characterize the poetry of words as the construction of rhythmic beauty. Kaveh Akbar is one of those individuals who epitomize rhythmic beauty, his lips being so shaped that his sighs and screams, when they travel over his lips, seem like lovely music to the ears. Oftentimes, paintings are seen as quiet poetry; they're static, and have all of their elements taken in one shot. Conversely, poetry is spoken painting; it's a reverberation that invites a shadow to dance. If one feels like their everyday existence looks impoverished, lacking in richness, they should not blame it; instead, they should blame themselves for not being poetic enough to evoke its treasures, for He knows no such thing as poverty. Poetry is the ideas that breathe and the words that burn, the language at its most refined and potent; it is the proof of life, for if your life is blazing well, poetry is only the ash. When we read a poem, we hear it with our eyes; when we hear it, we see it with our ears. Poetry is a reflection, a mirror, that converts to lovely from something twisted.

Part of why I seem to love poetry now, is that it's closer to essential truth than history. It's more refined and intellectual than history, since it represents universal insights, whereas history is merely the specific. In that respect, Kaveh Akbar is like a mourning dove that sits in the darkness and sings to cheer its own loneliness with the sound of dreams.

Enough with my flowery language; we should get to Akbar's wonderful poem. I don't intend to make this entry of mine as long-winded as my previous one, as I simply don't have the time to do so. However, I do desire to go through all of the desirable elements within Akbar's poem, and that desire in itself will likely cause some length to be added to this entry of mine. It's a long poem, longer than the one I previously analyzed, but it's an excellent one nonetheless. Regardless of all of what I just said, you, as the reader, will ultimately see whether I succeeded or failed in meeting my desire.

Akbar's poem is one about America, the American dream, and everything in between. He talks about a burning palace, kings, and his father coming to America for his dreams. He remarks on how "opportunity costs," how the American dream is flawed, and how America is, ultimately, an empire.

The speaker seems to be the same as the poet, Akbar. As shown by the references to "Tehran" (where Akbar was originally born at) and a father's immigration to America (which is how Akbar arrived in the United States), it is extremely suggestive that this poem is written by and spoken by the same individual, Kaveh Akbar. In a subcaption of the title in the new yorker, it says, "A poet considers America, and what it means to call a country home." in reference to "The Palace," further reinforcing the idea of who the speaker is. Thus, from now onward, I will refer to the speaker (or narrator) as Akbar, and if I say "speaker" or "narrator," it is implied that I am talking about Kaveh Akbar.

Akbar seems to change his image multiple times throughout the poem. First, he talks about a burning palace and a king that gets overthrown, relating the idea to the immigration of his father to America not being as fruitful as his father desired. Then he discusses the land of opportunity, and how opportunity "costs," how America is the "broken headstone...far enough away from itself." He then shifts to what it means to be an American, that there are Americans that desire to bring annihilation to his home city (and, by extension, country) of Tehran. In the same section, Akbar discusses how America is a refuge, a safe place. He ends by suggesting that civilization also implies barbarism, and hints at the need for the destruction of the empire. All of the shifts within the poem are pretty well distinguished, as, they are separated by a palpable barrier, which, in the case of the new yorker website (which displays the poem), happens to be an image. The voice of Akbar facilitates from assertive to distraught at various points in the poem. For instance, he talks about how there are "no doors in America...Only king-sized holes.", and how his father "wanted to be Mick Jagger" but ended up "full ghost...working on duck farms for thirty years," coughing up a feather "once a sleep a couch." To Akbar, there are no doors in America; there is no opportunity. Instead, there is hardship, adversity, and grueling physical labor. America to Akbar is not "Mick Jagger" or "heaven," though that's what some people may think when initially thinking of America. America is where the "palace burns," where the "palace is fire.", and where society seems to be polarized and set for internal destruction.

Furthermore, there is a jumping structure in the poem that is characterized by forward-moving fragments and enjambment, as well as by stepping toward and stepping around its primary motif, which is America. America is a reoccurring element all throughout the poem, symbolizing hostility, with children wearing shirts that say "We Did It To Hiroshima, We Can Do It To Tehran!", and also a refuge, keeping the dead "warm under [it]." There is also the evident symbol of a king, who, at the beginning of the poem, gets his "goodness" and fingers plucked out of him by those he invited to "feast on sweet lamb of stories." This same king gets described as performing their best "in the dark, where you can't see his hands move." Kings, while to all intents and purposes seeming to be a reference to the individual with the utmost power in the monarchial power structure, is also a reference to the elite, the uber-rich, the extremely powerful. In a way, those people, too, those Jeff Bezos, Elon Musks, and Mark Zuckerbergs, are kings in their own form, with the significant influence they possess. "There are no good kings. Only beautiful palaces." People may have a basketful of feelings, positive and negative, about these "kings," these "captains of industry," their positions and possessions, but none have the temerity to challenge them. They bow down to them rather, because these kings are all of these things, and then again, they are all these things because these people bow down to them. Ultimately, these people's palaces, their companies, their buildings, their employees, heck, even their inner workings are what are beautiful, as these are what form the "palaces" for these very individuals, the very thread in which they thrive upon.

Code-switching, a unique form of diction usage, is also at play in the speaker's poem. Akbar, when describing that he is not with his mother when she is frying "eggplant," but rather, "elsewhere in America...writing this, writing this...", says that though his mother's first language is "English," it's not his, and that he might have said, "bademjan" (eggplant) or "khodafez" (goodbye). The fact that Akbar felt it necessary to use Farsi (Persian) words to illustrate his sentiments plays at the idea that he feels entrapped by the language of empire, the language of America, which he utilizes not only to write this poem of his, but every other poem of his. Outside of this poem and also within ("English" not being his "first language"), Akbar discusses how difficult it is to write in the language of "empire," of being imposed on to utilize expressions, phrases, and single terms that carry so much weight of historical atrocity (for instance, the lack of opportunity given to minorities - as suggested through his poem), and of trying to imagine a way to speak counter to that while also knowing that it is flowing through everything one says, and in fact flowing. Punctuation is often used to break up the grammar in his poem, and even when it falls short of the ultimate destination of its full utterance, the syntax is rendered terminal. In a way, it's similar to inserting line breaks into the midst of poetry over and over again. Adding on to a previous thought, Akbar's poem is natural and relaxed, breaking with syntactic portions sometimes, and from time to time, even breaking deliberately against them. Either way, it creates a break in the narrative flow and forces us, the reader, to reckon with their specific words and their contexts, while also giving rise to novel syntactic possibilities within the prevailing syntax of line and sentence. Contrary to what it claims, the language used by Akbar acts in various ways. Even if that's not a strategy for resisting, opposing, and breaking down an empire (which it most certainly isn't), it's at least a means to avoid passively serving as one (as an empire). Many of Akbar's poems, this one included, uses techniques like enjambment and caesura to halt, disrupt, and disturb the language of the empire (i.e., English). From where Akbar says, "Who here could claim to be merely guilty? / [enjambment here] The mere.", creating a rhetorical effect of the guilt being placed on literally, those that are clearly seen to be guilty, to the "babies born addicted to fear of babies," which suggests a parasite of inner turmoil within society, Akbar makes use of varying degrees of caesura and enjambment to better illustrate his point about American society.

The poem's title is "The Palace," which, when thought of literally, is the official residence of royalty (e.g., a king or queen). When looked at deeper, however, since kings are not kings as we perceive them in the modern-day world, we see the universal idea behind the poem. Sure there is Saudi Arabia, the Vatican City, the United Arab Emirates, and a few other countries, but they don't conform precisely to the conventional ideas of what kings are deemed to be. They might have palaces, sure, and absolute power, yes, but do they have the same technological and environmental setup as kings in around 3000 BC? Likely not. That "universal idea" that I previously brought up in this paragraph is the idea that the "Palace," though seemingly extinct, is actually in existence, just in different forms. Palaces exemplify the architectural and social values of the culture and era in which they were constructed, and given the fact that they were most often built by the wealthy, the "kings," they are typically "beautiful," given the architectural thought and blood, sweat, and tears, that was invested in them. The palace can be a grand building, but it can also be a small building; it can be an apartment, a townhouse, or a house. It can be anything so long as it's the official residence of an exalted individual, such as that of a king. However, palaces can be that, but they can also be much more. As suggested by Akbar, palaces can be "heaven," "goodness," and also "fire." The palace can have positive as well as negative connotations. To one person, a palace, a building, or an environment, a society, or a hierarchy, can be uplifting, but it can also be debilitating. In running with the same line of thought, kings are often ruthless and cruel, given their common egotistical nature and yearning for power. In addition, most kings are not democratically elected; they are placed in their position by divine right, adding more to the idea of why "there are no good kings," only "burning palaces." Palaces are beautiful and come in many forms, deserving of appreciation for their glamor.

Kaveh Akbar is an Iranian-American poet and scholar. He knows about empire, for he is living in one (the empire of America), and as a result, he also knows of the palace, the little components that combine to build up the empire. He has dealt with the promises of the "palace," of "opportunity," prosperity, and growth, and its "monstruous" nature that seems to only promote grotesqueness. Not only has he felt the empire and the "palace," but so has his family, having essentially gone through the same things he did (inevitable immigration, conflict with the American dream, harassment, et cetera).

My best take at a paraphrase of the poem:

The king gets toppled

there are no good kings.

Who is merely guilty? Merely.

My family left to become an American, to enter opportunity, dreams, and democracy. They ended up in hypocrisy.

Doorless America. King-sized holes.

Losses. Everything is an exchange.

America's shattered headstone. Far from America.

Hostility in the youth, lack of nobility in the mobility.

Palace seat. Drawn without raising my pen, created barefoot.

America, who kisses you? You rise, and I lose.

Today, giving my farewells, I say to you America, don't make me a fool.

I honestly am not proud of this piece of work of mine, but it is what it is. I have not revised this, as good writers should do, and I have not written this with my utmost cognitive function, which is what everyone should do when approaching any meaningful task. It is 6:30 AM now (8:40 AM now that I am about to publish), and I have essentially stayed awake for a literal 24 (26 now) hours, with the last three or so being dedicated to this entry of mine. I have struggled with writing this entry, both because I think this ultimate result won't be up to my standards (I am extremely sleep deprived right now), and because there were certain elements in the story I didn't understand (like the pencil being pushed slowly through the tricep of Akbar's brother). Regardless, I found this story interesting and speaking to some of my experiences. I know America is an empire. It is and has always been one. Though it may not be official, the power and influence over the world it has speaks for itself. I don't desire to resist empire, unless I see it as undermining of the common good, and even then, it won't be in the way that most people think of. Through the building up of solidarity, the speaking to the people, the congregation of the masses will this empire be altered for the better. Those very abstract ideas that seem intangible to me now, are how I desire to undermine and bring down empire. There's definitely hatred within America, and outside of America about America, However, there is also love within and outside of America. It's this very same love that I desire to make use of, to absorb within myself, that I hope to rebel in a similar yet different way from Akbar to empire, through words, yes, but also through action, and through mass mobilization. It may seem hard, it may seem tedious and unimaginable, but with time, genuinely good ideas permeate, and those ideas will eventually incite the change that we are looking for, for a more prosperous America, and by extension, a more thriving world. There is ample literary devices in Akbar's poem, like alliteration, simile, metaphor, imagery, irony, hyperbole, symbolism, and much more, and though I didn't have the mental resources to get to all of them, they're there, and they all work to craft at the heart of Akbar's message, which I feel is to persevere despite how daunting the odds (the empire) may seem, for in the end, you will reach the beautiful palace.

Akbar's poem, like many of his other poems, was fantastic, evoking notions I had in the back of my mind, but never had fully embraced. I took advance of my "opportunity" in that sense, bringing myself to a sort of "palace", but there is still kings, still obstacles, which are no "good" that must be rid of, to bring not only myself, but others towards the path of enlightenment.

Khodafez for now, my burning palace.