The Last Poem I Loved: “Cockroach” by Randall Mann

More accurately: the last poem I envied, and isn’t envy but one form of love? From time to time you come across a poem that makes you stop, read (once, then again, and again, which in 2011, is quite a feat), then think, “damn, I wish I would have written that.” This seems one of the highest compliments one writer can give another, one the carefully chiseled “Cockroach,” which can be found here, well deserves.

What first strikes me about “Cockroach” is what amazes me about every Mann poem: that sense of control. Each line contains no superfluous word; each image is succinct and necessary. Each line break—yes, line break!—holds a weight full of both emotion and precise decision; these breaths simultaneously stop time and move it forward. In this way, Mann is a poet’s poet.

But what really strikes me about this poem is how it brings that level of craft into a marriage bed with popular culture. The movement between the second and third stanzas is exemplary:

I played
with my Anne Sexton
action figures; I played adolescence.
Nothing came between me

and my Calvins, not really

How richly layered with emotion that is! First, we’re laughing with the idea of an Anne Sexton action figure. Then we’re shot to heavy introspection by the thought of “playing” adolescence, where we dwell for just an instant before smiling again because indeed, nothing comes between us and our Calvins. Other poets all- too-often lose the emotional complexity poetry is capable of when addressing the popular. Mann, however, serves as our fully-capable captain as we sail through the here and now, through Walgreens and the gated community, through Mr. Roboto and the adult video store, through the very waters that make up our cultural identity.

“Cockroach” joins a rich lineage of poems that use pesky creatures—such as Lowell’s skunk—so beautifully as literal figure and effective trope. The cockroach in Mann’s poem briefly laments “you may not remember me,” but when I see those little black legs scurry across the floor, it is guaranteed: I will remember, and gladly.