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“1989,” by Ron Koertge, is a poem about a man’s disposition during funerals and memorial services. The poem also includes the outlook the speaker maintains on such ceremonies. A definite response to the speaker’s attitude in the poem is unclear. The manner in which he regards funerals is unusual. On the other hand, the way in which he celebrates life, rather than mourning death is admirable. These two elements are apparent throughout the poem from beginning to end. In the beginning of the poem, the speaker acknowledges the AIDS crisis during the 1980’s. He explains that the services for those who died were so high in number that the speaker had to clear out his or her schedule in order to attend the funerals. He regarded the funerals with resistance and saw them as a challenge. I went to a lot of memorial services that year. There were so many, I’d pencil them in between A movie or a sale at Macy’s (l1. 2-4). The speaker establishes that he could only bear sitting through the ceremonies because of a movie or shopping spree afterwards. The speaker possibly planned these activities to preoccupy himself and to take his mind off of the tragic events. If his days consisted of a busy schedule, then it did not allow him much time to think about the fact that so many of his friends were dying. He engaged in these meaningless activities in order to trivialize the deaths of his loved ones so that he could mask his grief. In addition, he notes that the only other thing that makes the services capable of being endured are the times when family or friends get up and talk about departed. “The other thing that made them tolerable was the funny stories people got up and told about the deceased: the time he hurled a mushroom frittata across a crowded room, those green huaraches he refused to throw away, the joke about the flight attendant and the banana that cracked him up every time” (l1.
Approximate Word count = 1203
Approximate Pages = 4.8
(250 words per page double spaced)
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