Raúl Calvoz

A shopping mall is a marketplace—which, at its most fundamental is about choices and exchange. Given that foundation, I chose explore choice and exchange on multiple levels. The form I selected for my works is the syntheme, a poetic form that involves presenting two poems side-by-side such that the interaction between the poems creates a conversation. Implicit in this form is the idea that whenever we are presented with two things/options, we compare, categorize, judge, and choose.  Just as we cannot have our cake and eat it too, choice of necessity involves choice for and choice against—inclusion implies exclusion. Thus, structurally, Syntheme: Impossible Choices immediately places the reader in a marketplace—Poem A or Poem B? Election Day or ‘merican Dream? 

Election Day presents a progression of impossible binary choices. In many instances no one would choose either of the binary options but impounded in these binaries is a third level choice—to  choose nothing, to do nothing.[1]  Everything is a choice. Every day is election day.

In contrast, ‘merican Dream presents versions of the American Dream that are found wanting. Choices have led to consequences. The narrative plays out in a shopping mall where we find that high ideals have been perverted, replaced with commercial substitutes. This poem leans into the idea of the death of the mall as a metaphor for the death of a set of ideals or principles and asks: what remains in their place? 

[1] “What is not possible is not to choose. I can always choose, but I ought to know that if I do not choose, I am still choosing.” (Sartre, Jean Paul. Existentialism and Human Emotions. 1957.  p.41).