Poetry and Pop


Page 11



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In the third stanza, Jarman reflects on differences between his feelings as
an adolescent and his feelings as an adult about adolescence. He also tries to
distinguish the image of The Supremes that "the camera tracked....into our
eyes" from The Supremes as real people who themselves experienced the
sixties as young adults not much older than the speaker. Jarman's reflection,
however, is immediately disrupted by his inability to articulate the differences.
A web of crossed connections, as well as the myriad illusions offered by both
memory and contemporary culture, make clear distinctions impossible. 





She must remember that summer

somewhat differently, and so must the two

who sang with her in long matching gowns,

standing a step back on her left and right,

as the camera tracked them

into our eyes in Ball's Market.

But what could we know, tanned white boys,

wiping sugar and salt from our mouths

and leaning forward to feel their song?

Not much, except to feel it ...






"She [Diana Ross] must remember that summer/somewhat differently,"
Jarman writes, and then wonders, "But what could we know, tanned white
boys... leaning forward to feel their song?" His answer: "Not
much." This note of resignation marks the speaker's frustration with his
inability to separate the "real" from the image, the
"authentic" from its commercial likeness. And the passage
matter-of-factly suggests that differences in race, gender, and social status
construct unbridgeable, even unimaginable, gaps between people. 






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