Macie Biber

Christina Phillips

English 101

15, February 2016

"You Were You" Essay One

In the poem "You Were You" by Sandra Beasley, the reader is taken on a short, but sweet, emotional journey through the dreamy reminiscence of an inanimate "jukebox". Hopelessly devoted to a man taking home another woman, the metaphorical "jukebox" girl speaking in the poem is as invisible to the man of her dreams as she could possibly be. Whilst playing what seems to be his favorite songs, or metaphorically yearning for his attention of any sort, she drives herself mad watching him ignore her feeble attempts and instead pay attention to a woman with seemingly "plastic" hair. Although the entirety of the poem takes place through recollection of a dream, the poem turns into be more of a realistic nightmare than anything else. The main idea that holds importance and intertwines meaning throughout the poem is the feeling of desperation and hopelessness, and Beasley conveys this longing for something the speaker cannot have through literary elements such as powerful imagery, metaphorical references, and cunning diction.

The imagery conveyed in "You Were You" is so strong and vivid, that at first glance, the reader could actually think that the speaker is an animated jukebox, telling her own sad tale from the corner of the bar. The reader gets put into the poem as though replacing the yearning woman and entering her first-person point of view, as though we are watching the man of our dreams take another girl home as well. Initially, the imagery is still longing, but sweet and innocent in nature. The observation, "You were wearing your best smile / and the shirt that makes your eyes green", not only gives the readers an insight to how physically the man looks, but how long the woman has been watching him. Silently, but surely, the speaker known as the "jukebox" has obviously paid her attention to her crush for a very long time. His "best smile", and the notice of a particular shirt indicates to the reader that maybe the "jukebox" is more than a stranger, possibly even a past lover that now remains in the dust. The imagery puts us all in her shoes, watching and waiting for a glimpse in the direction of you. Here, is where the hopelessness of the character flows vividly. The desire of being noticed is almost too much for the woman to handle, and begins to take over her emotions. She notes specifically, "I wanted you to you're your hand off of her", giving off a tinge of jealousy and anger. She seems to be easily controlled by her emotions, and lets the spur of the moment grasp her state of mind. Later on, when the poem progressively shows her dream man taking another woman home, "the bubbles in my blood were singing / in the morning, they came to repair me."  You can practically feel the emotional twist and turmoil that the speaker is going through; her voice and tonal transition turns her once imagined innocence into the mind of a possible stalker. Although rejection is upsetting, the image of blood boiling and musical screaming as though her pot is over flowing, and the act of reparation combined with so, hints to the readers that the crush on a man in a bar may be more of an obsession. The woman seems to have snapped in half; she snapped from the bending and breaking toll that hopelessness takes.

The metaphorical use of turning the woman into a "jukebox" is both crafty and creative, while holding much more meaning than simply portraying a woman being displaced and ignored in the back of a bar. Jukeboxes contain playlists upon playlists of music; basically any song on the playlist that is offered can be played for a quarter or two. However, they are old and outdated; the music played serves simply as background noise. Unless one is drunk whilst their favorite song comes on in this bar and happens to hear the whispers of the tune over the loud chatter, the jukebox, and its music, goes unnoticed. Using the jukebox as a metaphor for herself goes by saying that she, one in the same, is old news, outdated and unnoticeably there. She is not anything special to the man across the bar, speaking to the new girl, which may just be the hottest thing on the market. Although our womanly jukebox once "glittered like 1972", now she "weigh[s] 300 pounds". She was hot once too, but now contains burdens that cause her to be invisible. Similarly, at the beginning of the poem, she speaker, "played Sam Cooke ... / but you didn't look over once", and assuming Sam Cooke is our mystery man's favorite artist, this could be a metaphor as well. She may have styled her hair to his liking; she even could have worn her nicest heels and most expensive dress. She "played Aretha, Marvin, and Reverend Al"; she most likely pulled out all of the stops. However, her "mouth was plastic", she could not speak, she could not even muster a whimper to catch his eye. As though watching in awe, her vision remained loyal to his journey throughout the bar and she could not even muster up a single word, even when he happened upon another woman. Her eyes were glued to the man and his new girl and her lips were frozen shut, the hopelessness and desperation practically spilling from within.

The diction in this poem is smart and witty, it practically tricks the audience into thinking that the figurative language used is literal, as though the woman is a literal inanimate jukebox. Although the poem is being told as though a recollection of a dream, the nightmarish tale translates to the audience, through the style of expression by Beasley, as though this "dream" may have happened in real life. The diction in the beginning of the poem is short, simplistically styled, for example, "I wanted to dance. I wanted a scotch", and "You were you, I was the jukebox". The sentence structure got to the point, and provided limited imagery. However, as the so-called "dream" continues, and her object of admiration becomes farther away from her grasp, the diction becomes more and more complex, for example, "A man tried to seduce me with quarters / but I could hear his truck outside, / still running". It is as though the more and more heated the speaker becomes, the faster she is speaking. The faster she is speaking, the more detail and imagery is portrayed. The poem ends with her anger reaching it's highest peak, as the "bubbles in [her] blood were singing", rather than the music once sung when used as a ploy to capture his attention. The diction is a telling sign for what the imagery and metaphorical writing style also reflects; hopelessness. As the speaker feels the man slipping through her fingers beyond repair as he walks out the door, her state of mind slips with him. The hopelessness takes hold of her and brings her to a whole new level of obsession as she becomes one with her anger. The twisted mindset of fixation physically and mentally

Overall, "You Were You" by Sandra Beasley is a remarkably written poem intertwined with hopelessness and desperation in a way that the reader's hearts both feel empathy for the "jukebox" woman, while being immensely crept out by her obsession. The audience feels her pain, because it is common for all of us to have a want for something we simply cannot have because it is human nature. By using literary techniques such as imagery and metaphors, Beasley advances the speaker's yearning tone and highlights the same central theme of dejection. By coining herself the "jukebox", the poem takes a twist by being deeper than it may seem at first glance. The cunning diction and sentence structure reflects the state of mind the speaker is in, and places the reader in the same exact mental state. The poem is like watching a train wreck in slow motion, and the entire audience cannot bear to look away. "You Were You" has layers upon layers of depth, and the layering of meaning upon literary technique usage is what makes the poem so incredibly unique.
