The Cruelty-Free Ivory Tower: a recovering
grad student presents tongue-in-cheek semi-academic poetry reviews
Like so many other writers and academics, I
used to be a barista. Aside from the fact that I needed the money to live,
there was something calming about it, something meditative: steps repeated as
faithfully as yoga poses. Cup. Steamed milk. Espresso, tamped, cranked into the
machine. You can lose yourself in those small moments. You can turn your brain
off; you can feel invisible. It’s a strange feeling, almost like dissociation,
made even odder by the hustle and bustle of the coffee shop around you;
strangers ordering coffee, yes, but also having spirited discussions, bombing
first dates, organizing into study groups, yelling about yoghurt, vomiting,
apologizing, and moving around one another in indecipherable, zoo-like
patterns.
In “Democracy Is Just the Name of Another Café,” Ben Robinson somehow manages to capture both parts of this experience: a
list of odd observations and uncanny interactions conveyed with absolute calm.
A meditation on chaos. We, too, are in this crowded coffee shop, overflowing
with strangers and strange occurrences.
But is it really only a coffee shop? The
title of the poem is flippant, maybe: democracy is just the name of another
café. Democracy would be a great name for a coffee shop, after all.
Extremely hip; a logo something like a simplified coat of arms, two crossed
arrows dividing a book, a gavel, a mug, a coffee bean. But what happens when we
think of this metaphor as a metaphor? What would democracy —
cast-your-ballot, everyone-has-a-voice, try-to-build-a-better-world-together democracy
— look like as a coffee shop?
In this poem, Robinson writes it “full of
cops / and soldiers in uniform”. He writes it with a parade outside. Democracy,
he seems to say, has become a militarized space, and while cops and soldiers
celebrate in the streets and coffee shop alike, an unnamed and un-uniformed
stranger “vomits at the bus stop”.
I want to tell this stranger that, more and
more, this is how democracy makes me feel, too. Months deep in both a pandemic
and the largest civil rights movement of our time, the actions and inactions of
our government feel nauseating to the touch. How else to rebel, to refuse, to
exorcise?
And meanwhile this café — this hip, hipster Democracy
— continues serving cappuccinos. I imagine the clientele would be much the same
as my old coffee shop: businessmen with starched cuffs rolled companionably to
the elbows, hot young moms with yoga mats strapped to their backs, students
with laptops and headphones that cost more than a full month’s rent. Sure,
Democracy has a ramp fitted over the front step for accessibility; it has
washrooms large enough to fit a wheelchair; it has multilingual and patient
baristas. But who is Democracy serving?
Like my old coffee shop, I suspect the
patrons are largely white, and comfortably employed, and able-bodied. Like my
old coffee shop, I’m sure the baristas are thankful that they work at Democracy
in this location, and not the sister café location a mere six blocks
further downtown — a store we fondly referred to as “the pointy shoe district,”
where the customers are richer, and even more uptight, and tip even worse.
Because it can always get worse.
Meanwhile this coffee shop is crowded with
soldiers. The other patrons in the coffee shop diminish, become something less
than human. “A raccoon buys me a cappuccino,” Robinson narrates, although of
course it’s not a raccoon but a person, a man who regales Robinson with
“stories of his life / as a young Sandinista” — which is to say, a man who was
a member of a socialist political party which ruled Nicaragua in the 80s and
90s. According to Wikipedia, the Sandinista National Liberation Front
“instituted a policy of mass literacy, devoted significant resources to health
care, and promoted gender equality, but came under international criticism for
human rights abuses, mass execution and oppression of indigenous peoples”
(np).* This man is no longer a soldier, we gather. He has given up his uniform
and become something else. He buys Ben Robinson a cappuccino. Disguised as — or
transformed into — a raccoon, he poses no risk to the soldiers, to us, or to
Democracy. But here the lesson feels underscored: to trust in those in power is
a mistake. It is tempting to overlook the bad in favour of the good, but this
spells danger for those unable to escape into the safety of a coffee shop and a
good cappuccino.
I can so perfectly imagine sitting in my old
café and watching the parade go by. I can feel Ben Robinson leaning over my
shoulder and whispering in my ear as we watch thousands of uniformed men pacing
as one, their many legs like an unending centipede. “And remember,” Robinson
says under his breath, “if it barks like a dog / and has 40,000 unflappable
teeth / tread carefully”. It is a good lesson. We would perhaps be wise to remember the
sharp teeth hidden in the soft mouths of the soldiers parading outside, their
canines sheathed but hungry nonetheless.
But who am I to say that Democracy is an
exclusive space? No one walks around policing the students who spent $3 on a
drip coffee five hours ago, or the woman who comes in and pours the whole
container of milk into her travel mug, or the man who smells horribly of urine.
Belonging can be easy, Robinson seems to say, or else safety can be faked; he
walks to the carafe of icy, lemon-scented water put out by the employees every
morning and pours some into one of the small plastic tumblers stacked beside
it. It is the single free beverage available to all, here in Democracy, and you
may help yourself even when every other thing on the menu remains tauntingly
out of reach. When the soldiers grow bored with the street and enter the coffee
shop, Robinson passes this glass to you swiftly. “Quick, take this cup / of
water and pour it inside yourself” Robinson says, “or you shall surely die.”
The soldiers see your mouth meet the rim of
the glass and pass over you harmlessly. You are a customer. You are above
reproach.
Democracy, after all, welcomes everyone.
*“Sandinista National Liberation Front.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28
July 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandinista_National_Liberation_Front.
Please do not cite Wikipedia in actual academic papers.
This is a bad practice and probably shouldn’t even be popularized even in this
small way. Love, your friendly neighbourhood PhD candidate.
Dessa Bayrock lives in Ottawa with two
cats and a variety of succulents, one of which occasionally blooms. She used to
fold and unfold paper for a living at Library and Archives Canada, and is
currently a PhD student in English, where she continues to fold and unfold
paper. Her work has appeared in Funicular, PRISM, and Poetry
Is Dead, among others, and her work was recently shortlisted for the
Metatron Prize for Rising Authors. She is the editor of post ghost press. You
can find her, or at least more about her, at dessabayrock.com, or on Twitter at
@yodessa.