Presley's Thought Blog

In Hanif Abdurrraqib’s poem, “Windsor Terrace, 1990”, he describes the night he and his friend, Jason, saw Buster Douglas knock out Mike Tyson on national television. Abdurraqib draws parallels between Mike Tyson’s physical struggle during the fight and Abdurraqib’s own struggles in life, and the struggles his community has to go through. “Windsor Terrace, 1990” encapsulates themes of helplessness, struggle, and a loop of pain one cannot escape. In many ways, this poem is similar to the myth of Sisyphus from Greek mythology.

According to Britannica, Sisyphus was a Greek king who was able to trick, capture, and evade death up until he eventually died of old age, but because of his “trickster” nature in the surface world, his punishment was to push a boulder up a hill for eternity.

Interpretations of Sisyphus’ morals vary from source, with Homer believing he was “the wisest and most prudent of mortals” according to the University of Minnesota. However, Zeus ultimately punished him for his Hubris, similar to the fate of Icarus and Prometheus. This myth serves as a lesson not only of the dangers of pride, but also as a lesson to never displease the gods. Sisyphus believes that he can outwit the gods and escape a premature death, but his punishment catches up to him in the end. While Sisyphus’ pride started his downfall, it was ultimately the gods who punished him simply for disobeying them. The biggest lesson of The Myth of Sisyphus is that you can never escape judgement from a higher power.

In Abdurraqib’s “Windsor Terrace, 1990”, Abdurraqib describes the determination he had as a child to escape poverty, and he would promise his mom that he would “fill their fists with gold one day”. Similarly, Tyson is physically trying to escape, he is trying to win. Tyson mirrors Abdurraqib’s financial struggle by his own physical struggle in the match. Abdurraqib draws parallels from Tyson’s movements in the ring to the movements of a man “praying for enough money to keep a baby’s modest stomach”.

Abdurraqib and Tyson are much like Sisyphus in this regard, they are trapped in their own state of struggle. Tyson is trapped by the audience, Abdurraqib is trapped by society. Sisyphus was not a man of excellent morals, but the greatest sin that he committed was opposing the gods. Abdurraqib made no decision to oppose the people above him, but the world that he was born into forced him to become a walking opposition to people above him, forced to remain in a cycle of struggle.

Jason’s grandpa also shows aspects of Sisyphus, except with more wisdom. He is aware of his cycle and he escapes by placing himself in a higher position than someone; he is watching Tyson struggle to avoid his own struggle. Abdurraqib emphasizes this parallel, and explains that people will pay to watch other people struggle for sport, but when “people spill from their apartments into a dim alley or a decaying school yard to watch, we call this the ghetto.”

Tyson is a mirror of Jason’s grandpa, if he can win the match, maybe they can escape poverty. When Tyson is knocked down, Jason’s grandpa is knocked down, he sees the cycle repeating itself, and he knows that the pain won’t go away after the TV turns off.

Every character in “Windsor Terrace, 1990” is like Sisyphus in some way. Abdurraqib is trying to escape his own struggles with poverty, Tyson is trying to escape failure, and Jason’s grandfather is trying to ease his own struggles by seeing others struggle. However unlike Sisyphus, none of these people have tricked or disobeyed people above them, yet they are in a world that punishes them regardless.

Link to original poem: https://buttonpoetry.com/product/the-crown-aint-worth-much/

In “Ode to Elliott Smith, Ending in the First Snowfall of 2003”, Hanif Abdurraqib only explicitly mentions Elliott Smith once through the use of the lyrics of “Between the Bars” when Abdurraqib’s friend reads a fortune cookie that says “drink up baby, look at the stars”. Besides that one specific mention of Smith, the poem primarily follows a personal anecdote from Abdurraqib and centers around a central idea of loneliness and hopelessness, and escaping from those feelings by being with people you love. At first glance, this makes the poem less of a traditional ode in the sense that it does not focus on specific ideas and examples of Elliott Smith, but rather the feelings he created through his music and how Abdurraqib was impacted by them. The approach that Abdurraqib uses of tying in a personal anecdote to Smith serves as a way to deepen the reader’s view of Smith and create an overarching theme that centers around Smith without directly mentioning his songs and his messages.

Focusing more on Abdurraqib’s role as the narrator in the poem, there are several hidden themes and messages, specifically the mention of lying to one’s family “about why we won’t be coming home for Christmas break” and again in the end of the poem when Abdurraqib says that he doesn’t “tell anyone the truth for a whole year”. While these mentions don’t specifically tie into the greater story at first glance, they further emphasize the theme of self-isolation. This is furthered through Abdurraqib’s anecdote of not tipping because “other people’s hunger is not our problem” and Abdurraqib’s friend Kristen’s proclamation to the world that “all fortunes are liars”, which further develops the overarching theme of the poem. While they may seem unrelated and difficult to understand at first, the reader still grasps the feeling of angst and loneliness that Abdurraqib creates with these lines even while they may not tie into the poem at first glance.

Reading deeper into the poem and Smith’s history however, the references to Smith stand out even more. The frequent mention of knives in the poem, such as when Abdurraqib mentions “the day when the knife grew impatient in its demanding of flesh” not only serves as a way to emphasize the cold harsh setting of the poem, but literally references Smith’s death, which was caused by a knife wound to the chest which many believe was self-inflicted. This somewhat hidden reference emphasizes the “ode” aspect of this poem and connects deeper to Smith and his own struggles in relation to Abdurraqib’s. The final line of Abdurraqib not telling “anyone the truth for a whole year” also makes more sense as one thinks about it. It emphasizes the point of self-isolation, but also goes further into the idea of mental illness and self-harm, another common theme in Smith’s writing. When Abdurraqib sees the fortune that says “we are all going to die alone”, he chooses to not tell anyone, and he once again looks inward to himself and isolates. This connection between Abdurraqib and Smith is furthered as this story can also be assumed that it takes place at the time of Elliott Smith’s death in October of 2003, where Abdurraqib is a teenager and while they are in different spaces, Abdurraqib is connected through Smith through his ideas and his impact.

Elliott Smith is my favorite musician. His songs, his beliefs, and his empathy serve as a constant goal and motivation for me as a musician; he is one of the main reasons why I play guitar and one of my biggest influences for singing so it’s easy to find myself infatuated with this poem. I specifically like the way that Abdurraqib chooses to approach this ode through a less traditional lens, not only as a way to further his appreciation, but once again to not put Smith in a box. If he were to simply create an ode to Smith, it would be easy to give off the impression that he was just another sad musician that was lonely, and the deeper messages are missed to new audiences. This is something that Smith himself took offense to when news publications and the media would do just that because he did not want people to solely see him as the man who wrote all of the sad songs, and rather the deeply complicated and emotionally mature person he was. I also love Abdurraqib’s way of using a personal anecdote to fully encapsulate the feeling of Smith’s writing and the way he meshes lyrics and examples of Smith’s life to his own. Overall, this poem resonates deeply within me and I love the way Abdurraqib approaches Smith’s writing.

Link to original poem:

Hanif Abdurraqib, “Ode to Elliott Smith, Ending in the First Snowfall of 2003″ [transcript under the cut] ODE TO ELLIOTT SMITH,… – @firstfullmoon on Tumblr

Link to cover photo:

Remembering Elliott Smith, 15 years after his tragic death