“On Alcohol” by Sam Sax
(https://unsplash.com/photos/a-man-laying-in-the-grass-with-a-bottle-of-beer-fOKaK7EjydM)
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/118565/on-alcohol
What immediately stands out and is easy to understand when you first read this poem?
It is immediately apparent that he has an intimate and unhealthy relationship with alcohol, speaking on how it causes him to lose things and people every time, but it does not stop him from abusing alcohol. Additionally, the use of slang and abbreviations mixed with advanced language also adds another very nice touch as these two contrasting qualities mix messily, similar to how alcohol typically results in messy things. Lastly, I think that the mentioning of his grandfather’s death due to what is suggested to be alcohol is also very easy to understand. More specifically, when Sax states that he called his drink his “medicine” and he simply called his wife, it displayed where his grandfather’s priorities lied.
Why do you think that’s important?
I think it’s important because even though alcohol takes from him, it’s so fundamental to his life, so having the bones of the poem being so obviously about alcohol means that you cannot take it away without losing something critical to the plot. If he removed alcohol from his life, a gigantic part of himself would be removed. From first drinking in the womb, so much of his life revolved around alcohol. This is clearly a pattern in his family given that his grandfather died bottle in hand, and he is prepared to follow suit.
What line/sections/stanzas of the poem are difficult to understand? Why?
The end of the third stanza as well as the sixth and seventh stanzas were difficult to understand as stanza three used very advanced language that I was not familiar with such as “apocrypha” while stanzas six and seven seemed confusing and a little incomplete. For example, Sax stated that his head was “neolithic.” This is confusing to me since the only definition for neolithic, at least to my knowledge, is a time period in the history of the Earth. I also do not know what an apocrypha is, so that made the third stanza quite difficult to understand.
What do you think they may be connected to or mean even if you don’t fully understand?
I think they may still be connected to memory loss related to alcohol and religious usage of alcohol, as I searched up apocrypha and got religious results. Regarding Sax’s head being “neolithic,” it could be him saying his brain is trying to figure things out and advance his understanding of what is going on around him.
What lines/sections/stanzas of the poem do you feel you have a good understanding of after you’ve spent some time thinking about the passage? Share your thoughts/analysis on these sections.
Starting with the 8th stanza I feel like I have a stronger understanding of the poem, as the divisions between each stanza are abrupt and harsh, akin to alcohol. Sax explicitly mentions how negative alcohol is for the people around him and himself, progressing his narrative by changing “every time I drink, I lose something” to “every time I drink, I lose someone” after mentioning his grandfather’s passing. I think that shift is very impactful and important, because it expresses a similarity between him and his grandfather, but also because the tone shifts with the reveal that drinking caused him to lose someone, not just something.
What personal connections can you make with the poem?
The author seems to be Jewish, the same as me. I can make connections to when he describes his bris and attending synagogue, as wine is relevant at both of those events.
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