Mark Doty's Unexpected Teacher

A Review of Sideshow

Mark Doty’s poem “Sideshow” from his first collection of poetry, Turtle, Swan, appears contained and safe on the page, though it is written in an open form. It is not broken into stanzas, but contains thirty continuous lines, none of which are more than eight words long. The entire poem elaborates on a memory the poet has of an experience at a circus sideshow. This idea of a single thought process continued across the poem is highlighted by the poet’s use of enjambment. He never ends a line with a period, but continues the thought onto the next line. There are only six periods in the poem, and besides final period, they all fall in the middle of a line.

Doty’s use of vivid imagery and provocative language is what makes his poem affecting. He uses no rhymes, and actually much of the poem could be read is if it were prose. But some key qualities of the language make the difference. First is the inclusion of assonance. There is not much, but when read aloud, certain phrases stand out like little gems. An earless goat “coughs softly.” An ewe drags a “hooved bundle.” Doty also utilizes similes and metaphors in his descriptions of the horse. Its face looks out “as if/ through a foot of lake water” as he stands there, “lone star of squalor.” These images leave a haunting impression on the reader’s mind.

The poem is lyrical, told in the voice of Doty and expressing his own emotions. The reader is drawn into his head through his use of imagery and his accessible language. The tone is reflective, melancholy, and morbid. Regardless of how the reader chooses to interpret the message, the fact is that Doty is relating to a dead, deformed animal filled with taxidermy chemicals and cotton.

The description of the stuffed horse- “cotton batting pushes/ the iridescent glass eyes slightly askew,/ his mouth sewn up into that crooked…smile” -is not very much unlike what someone may see looking down at the painted, rearranged face of a loved one in a coffin. It never looks quite right; the cheeks are a little too plump, the coloring is off. In the horse’s case, his mouth is stitched up in a lopsided smile. Is the smile ironic, or is it supposed to be poignant? The poet concludes that the horse knew that his life was sub-par. He could never run and play. He was most likely lonely; what other horse would want him? But none of this matters anymore. He is a celebrity. In death he cannot rest, but is placed where all can see and admire him.

Following a wake, guests at a funeral find themselves sitting through a service that, more often that not, glorifies the departed individual. Sometimes these praises are well deserved, sometimes they are long overdue, but sometimes the desire for comfort distorts the memory of those left on Earth. Fiction takes the place of true memories, and ordinary, flawed individuals become legends. Doty literally provides an illustration, a painting of a horse “shorter than daisies” frolicking weightlessly across an impossibly green meadow. In reality, this had never been the case.

The poem is entitled “Sideshow.” Likely, thousands of people laid eyes on the WORLD’S SMALLEST HORSE in that miserable tent, but none came all the way there to admire him. The circus flyers made sure they advertised the shows and the glitz! The tent holding a few pitiable farm animals mostly existed to give mothers and sons something to do while they waited between shows and ate their cotton candy. On one hand, a funeral is a serious, memorable event. But no one can dwell too much on a funeral or on a death. It’s not healthy, and it is not realistic. The world spins on every day as hundreds of thousands of souls make their exit. Therefore, a funeral is not so different from a sideshow at the carnival that is life.

It is noteworthy that Doty makes no mention of a “me” until the final line of his poem. Up to the last two words, the poet only pays attention to the animals in the sideshow, and particularly to the small horse. The reader of the poem is drawn into this horse’s life, commiserating with it, but at the end, one is invited to consider that the horse has something to offer him or her. It is such a tragic character that one may not want to realize he and it are not so different. Everyone has shortcomings and unrealized dreams. Everyone will someday die. If they are lucky, they will be released to the hands of death and will not be held captive in a “miserable tent” forever. Doty invites the reader to consider being like the horse, but unlike its captors, forgiving and accepting life as it was, not clinging to the dream of what it might have been.