Eloquence
Susan McLean

It wasn’t true. It wasn’t fair. However,
I had the knack and saw what it could do.
His arguments were better, but mine drew
applause for their deft wordplay, crisp and clever.

In me, the cat’s pounce, the macaw’s display
appeared as if from nowhere. All I’d read,
stalking the fertile mudbanks in my head,
left sharp-clawed footprints, showing me the way.

And as for banter, since I had already
found my match, why volley verbal charm
at others, leading them and me astray?
I chose to spurn the gift, crafty and heady,
not using it for power or for pay—
just poetry, where it could do no harm.

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Susan’s notes: “November is the month for elections in the U.S., so I have been exposed to a lot of political speeches recently. Those speeches remind me of the power of rhetoric, but also of my discovery, when I was in high school, that eloquence is independent of both truth and morality, and is therefore dangerous, both to the speaker and to the listener. An assignment I was given in my senior year, to debate an issue with another student and then have the class vote on who won the debate, gave me my first inkling that I had some skill with rhetoric that could give me an advantage in argument. The topic the other student and I chose to debate was the merits of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, the cast album of which had recently been released to great acclaim. I was a fan of the musical, and I extolled it with flashy wordplay and emotional appeals, while Steve, a classical-music fan, gave a reasoned explanation of its limitations in comparison to classical music. The class voted that I won the debate. Much as I liked winning, I could see that his arguments were well-founded, and that I had won by wowing the listeners with verbal fireworks and telling them what they wanted to hear. It felt like cheating.

“It was exciting to discover that I had persuasive powers that I had not known I possessed, but I realized that I did not like the feeling that I was winning by trickery. I could see that these verbal skills could be lucrative or powerful if I went into a field like advertising, sales, or politics, but I realized that I would much rather stick to the goals I already had, of becoming a teacher and a writer, neither of which was likely to lead to money, fame, or power. I already had a boyfriend, too, so I didn’t need to use my verbal skills to make me popular or give me sex appeal. Ironically, winning the debate made me realize what I really wanted wasn’t winning at all costs.

“This poem was originally published in THINK Journal.”

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Susan McLean is a retired English professor from Southwest Minnesota State University. She has published two poetry collections, The Best Disguise and The Whetstone Misses the Knife, and one book of translations of Latin poems by Martial, Selected Epigrams. Her third poetry book, Daylight Losing Time, is out now, published by Able Muse Press.

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Eloquence Susan McLean

Eloquence
Susan McLean