Dunn's "Tucson"
The Fate of Desire
“Tucson” by Stephen Dunn sheds a light on getting what you need when it is not clear what you want or whether you need to want it. Mick Jagger said, “You cannot always get what you want” which today is cliché, but as with all clichés it has a niche in a corner of humanity.
Beyond the Time and Place
“A man was dancing with the wrong woman” and from there the setting is created around “the wrong bar” in “the wrong part of town” (1-2). The stage is set for something very “wrong” to happen and it seems, on the surface, that this poem is predictable and tired, riding on the coattails of “wrong place, wrong time”. WRONG!
More Than Two Sides
The reader is introduced to a subtlety of events and a humorous voice that is almost too human to see the undercurrent of causalities in the tired scenario. In line three the reader is presented with a man who has “chosen the woman, the place”, but not well. Ironic enjambment emphasizes that the choice was made about “as keenly as you choose what to wear / when you dress to kill” (4-5). With only a few words the man is identified not as evil or good but as a creature of choice. Importantly, the choice is not black and white, but at once deeply superficial and eternally resonant.
The Voice is Not Important
The woman “who could have said no” to the man when he asked her to dance is an archetype of the “kind of trouble” variety that frequents bars (6-8). After introducing the two main characters and setting up the conflict the voice recognizes itself as being “there for no good reason […] with a friend looking for a friend” and the voice refers to itself as “not important” (10-12). Maybe the ability of the voice to perceive the importance of this moment is principally derived from the fact that it so outwardly and inwardly aware of its own triviality.
Whose Fate?
The man and the woman begin “dancing close / when a man from the bar decided / the dancing was wrong” (13-15). Beyond the apparent control of either the man or woman who are dancing a decision is made by an observer and the decision leads to insight on the part of the voice because it remembers “how fragile the face is, how fists too / are just so many small bones” (16-17). If humans can decide their own fate how can they simultaneously be aware of the motives of those around them that will affect their fortune?
Needing to Want
The poem begins to wind down while the blood from the fight is “wiped up” and the “woman began to dance / with another woman” (19-21). The voice is admittedly shaken up from the violence with hands that are “fidgety, damp” (23). As things seem to go back to normal the friend of the voice states, “nothing’s wrong, stay put / it’s a good fighting bar, you won’t get hurt / unless you need to get hurt” (27-29).
What is “good” about fighting? Who “needs” to get hurt? No one wanted to get hurt. The man wanted to dance. The woman wanted to dance. Both maybe desiring more. The voice was just “with a friend looking for a friend” (11). Outside of the control of those who are portrayed as desirous is the unseen craving of the outsider who wants conformity to his standards of male/female interaction. The outsider selfishly and violently extends its own subjective moral parameters onto others. After all is said and done the voice did not “need to get hurt”, or did it?
Stephen Dunn
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