First Critical Paper

An Ironic Relationship

 Sharon Olds’ poem “Summer Solstice” exudes the city of New York through ironic stimulation of splendor combined with loneliness in a suicidal scene. Arthur Fellig, better known as Weegee, also did this with his photographs. In his photograph, “Scene of the Crime”, the viewer is shown a scene of a murder through the eyes of women and children. Despite the horrific crime in front of them, the expressions on the faces of those exposed is one of awe and excitement rather than fear of an exposure to the corruption of the city surrounding them. A mixture of beauty and despair, just as Olds does throughout her poem. This all can be compared to that of essayist Edward Abbey in “Manhattan Twilight, Hoboken Night.” Although the essay is an account of the city through the eyes of a man from jersey, the image of New York City is a mixture of splendor and loneliness.  Abbeys says that “the city is doomed… human hatred” but “the loneliness is not enough. We must save the city. It is the essence and substance of us all—we cannot lose it without diminishing our stature as a nation…”  (Abbey 100-101) The good comes with the bad. The beauty of the city combines with existential loneliness.  Olds’ poem describes such a relationship with the city. On this “longest day of the year” loneliness reaches its peak and life doesn’t seem worth living, but the city brings itself together. (Olds 1) Spreading its sheets like wings, “prepared to receive life at a birth”. (Olds 22) The day represents the feelings that residents have for their own cities. The poem represents this peculiar relationship of city and resident. Weegee captures this relationship as well. It’s an exposure to everything that is beautiful and hideous in this city. Even admist a crime scene, there can be smiles on the faces of the witnesses. Even though everything is falling apart with suicide and rooftops, the city will share a cigarette together.

Sharon Olds’ poem is a testament to this very relationship of New York and its residents. Through the tale of a man prepared for suicide on top of a New York building, readers are given a sense that this image does not shock its witnesses through imagery that make the scene almost seem beautiful instead of tragic. In what would be a seemingly horrifying presentation, Olds condenses time and shows the inescapable surrounding beauty through such images as the suicidal man’s shirt “glowing its milky glow” and “red, growing ends”. (Olds 25, 38) These metaphors and images control the scene around him. Despite this man’s austere, empty life, he is surrounded by the beauty of a New York City summer. The picture is bigger than his tragedy. The eyewitness becomes, within itself, a poetic vision. Just as writer Eleanor Wilder expresses in “And now a bubble burst, and now a world’: The Mutable Magnitudes of Metaphor”, “It is the burning ends of the cigarettes at night, these minute glowing circles of fire, seen in the context of a human rescue of a man from suicide and endless night, that suddenly suggest something larger seen at a great, even an immense, distance, and that distance is temporal: “the red, glowing ends burned like the/tiny campfires we lit at night/back at the beginning of the world.” (Wilder) Olds reveals that on a summer night where a man wants to end his life, he can be rescued and the city moves on responsible for its inhabitants but somewhat oblivious, a series of evolution.

Where the poem exhibits this progression and connection of man with New York City, photographer Weegee’s manages to do for his viewers by exhibiting a sensory revelation of human corruption and its connection within a community. His photo series titled “Scene of the Crime,” exploit crimes and their victims and puts it in your face forcing you to feel something and understand the bigger picture of the city at the time. In the photograph “Their First Murder” children and women are exposed to the murder of a robber. Their facial expressions and body positions make the scene seem almost beautiful and entertaining, not he stereotypical gasps that one would expect. Through a magnified clip of faces illuminated before the apartments behind them, the viewer is exposed to the variety of emotions this city can hold within itself. Weegee took pictures of what was actually going on in the city in an instant, snapshots of New York’s beauty within chaos allowing images to burn the minds of the viewer revealing the cities secrets all at once.  Journalism Jess Rodgers describes Weegee’s subjects so perfectly. “The people Weegee found on his expeditions are not characters in costume, but actual people letting their guard down in the dark, whether it be to mourn the loss of life or party in the Village.” (Rodgers, The Daily Bruin) Olds and Weegee both exemplify this idea in their mediums. When tragedy occurs in a community, its residents let their guards down for a moment and emotions are revealed, masks are taken off. And what is beneath the mask, is hardly ever what you expect.

The characters and constitutions riding with their guards down in the poem and photograph remain intact, but are not always the central focus. In Olds’ poem, it seems as though the primary focus would be on the suicidal man, but it is not. Rather, the central focus is of the other people involved; mostly the policemen. The eyewitness is the poetic vision, bringing it all together. Olds describes the bulletproof vests made to protect a father and the cops’ humble attempts to save the suicidal man’s life. Instead of seeing the man’s raw emotion, the reader sees the policemen hold up the man, taking his life back for him. While it is easier to assume the emotion of a man ready to let go of his life, Olds does not give way to describe them.  There is no talk of his depression or what made him decide to choose that New York building and that specific day. It is solely described as “the longest day of the year” and “he could not stand it.” (Olds 1) Readers are left to create their own assumptions, and instead are given the account of compassion and beginnings.  

The thing that remains constant throughout both Weegee and Olds’ work is the irony in unexpected places. In word and image, the biggest form of irony lies within the titles of the pieces of work. In “Their First Murder”, Weegee titles something so horrific, something almost witty. Though the scene is tragic, it is also entertaining. These children are witnessing what is perhaps the beginning of their loss of innocence. Violence is not always seen as something to be hidden; it can be inuring and stimulating. The title of Sharon Olds’ poem is just as ironic. Upon first reading the title, “Summer Solstice, New York City” you imagine the words would be filled with sugary images of summer in the city. Images of children, lemonade and kissing are what immediately spark the mind, but her choice to embark on the opposite of the initial expectancy is what makes the poem work. The imagery of cigarette ends, and instead of the blue of the summer sky, the “blue-grey as the sky”, is used to describe the vests of the police officers. (Olds 7) And although the title is ironic in substance, through definition it could also shape meaning. This moment is a turning point in the lives of the viewers and the suicidal man. The title could insinuate seasonal alterations put into a perspective of a massive and overwhelming city like New York.

The relationship between the city and the residents is working, holding things together that you thought would never make it. It’s all about the consistency and the ability to move through the difficulties with the skyscrapers holding hands. The city will save its residents. It’s making the relationship work through honesty and reliability. Weegee captures this relationship through graphic images combined with unexpected emotion. Saving itself from loneliness through smiles and innocence. In Olds’ poem the city would it is evident that it would save the man even if there weren’t any poet to document it. It would send the blue glistening cops up to the roof even if, “the man was armed” at the top.  It would keep them all bound to being each other’s heroes and part of each other (Olds 3). The city will not fail you; will not let you down. It is between alleys and taxicabs, crime scenes and children’s faces.  It’s there to embrace.