Kay Ryan, "The Elephant in the Room"
Robert Frost's "The Gift Outright" is essential for talking about nationalism and founding myths, but I'd like to discuss another poem relevant to our times. I believe it does not need an introduction. You've seen it before, I'm sure.
Kay Ryan's "The Elephant in the Room" has made the rounds on social media for years now. I am apprehensive writing about it. It is a short, obvious poem, but "obvious" constitutes a trap for both critic and audience. Some will see the text and go "meh;" others will assume they know what the elephant in the room is; only a few will ask about whether their elephant is someone else's. The "obviousness" of the poem works like John Cage's 4'33'' when the sound of violent arrests from outside of the room fill it. It's not just a protest poem; it's pushing you to confront something you'd rather not.
The Elephant in the Room Kay Ryan The room is almost all elephant. Almost none of it isn’t. Pretty much solid elephant. So there’s no room to talk about it.
The poem feels like an experience each of us has had as individuals out of place.
"The room is almost all elephant." Squeezed against a wall, I’m reminded of being ignored at a party. I’m just trying to get as flat as possible here, not trying to bother you, ho-hum. There’s a problem and it’s gotten out of hand. Either I’m ignored by everyone and trying to find some space distinctly mine, or I’m trying to avoid confronting a threat continually growing in size. There’s an elephant in this room because I’m in deep, deep denial.
How do I know I’m in denial? Because I’m still looking for room in a room jammed with an elephant: "almost none of it isn’t [elephant]." Heck, I’m probing around, seeing if the elephant is really there. No luck, it’s all "pretty much solid elephant."
This leads to a funny, strange conclusion. Since everything is elephant, "there’s no room to talk about it." What does that mean?
That last set of lines–"there's no / room to talk / about it"–forces an "I" to become a "We." Everything and everyone is an elephant. What structures our denial?
You could start with an example. This is, after all, the Age of Trump and a specific sort of denial. Some Democrats in power, after the attempted assassination, have said that calling Trump authoritarian is bad. Never mind that he wants to deport 15 million people, calls his opposition "vermin," and routinely encourages violence against anyone and everyone. Never mind the scope and violence of the family separation his administration indulged and plans to bring back.
Denial is operative here, but what is going on exactly? Why don't some Democrats want to talk about Trump being a threat to their well-being? I mean, it's lives on the line–literally in the case of January 6th, or Paul Pelosi, or anyone else: judges, civil servants, election officials, school board members, teachers, and librarians have been flooded with death threats from right-wing extremists. It's not just fear, I don't think. Fear can be overcome individually and then sublimated into a push for collective change. There's a bigger myth, a denial that's too close to issues of identity.
It's possible to go too big in this critique. The United States has unfortunately been a colonial and imperial power and operates in a number of cases like one. A considerable number of elected politicians are furious with the Biden administration's blank check to Israel while war crimes continue. So some will say there's no difference between the Democrats and Trump because of U.S. imperialism. That's too sweeping; it indicts people who are clearly trying to change things. We need to locate the source of this specific denial. Why would you not want to believe it when extremists reveal who they are?
Ryan's poem puts us in the space between "We" and "I." What don't I want to admit, squeezed in that room? I don't want to admit I'm being squeezed. I don't want to admit I lack room. I want to pretend like everything's normal.
Sure, some would like to deny the existence of U.S. imperialism, the actual cost of the War on Terror, the amount of political violence there is nowadays, the impact of out of control billionaires and corporations with price-setting power, and the racism, homophobia, and general hate on display everywhere. But is all of that intuitive for someone in an official capacity? What do they actually think about?
What an official wants to deny, I suspect, is that they are doing anything less than good. And the United States of America, unfortunately, has a powerful mechanism for making this insecurity turn into a virtue. I submit that the elephant in the room, in this particular case, is American exceptionalism. Some people sound fascist and even do things that terrorists and dictators do. But they can't possibly throw everyone they don't like in jail, right? This is America--something in this country I serve will protect me, right?
As long as we treat the harm done to actual citizens on a daily basis as incidental, the elephant will grow until the room explodes. We can only be exceptional if we stop making an exception for ourselves. Questions worth asking: What can we give each other that makes our lives together better? What do we need to protect each other from? Why do cable news addicts have the power over life or death in this country?