"When I Get Depressed"

So I currently have a pile of poetry books on my bedroom floor. Why, you may ask? Well, I was talking to my stepdad about this poetry blogging project the other day. He was an English major back when he was at university (the same university I’m attending, as a matter of fact), so we often talk about what classes I’m taking, and what I’m reading, and sometimes he’ll look over my papers for me to make sure they’re coherent. Anyway, when I told him that the blog could be about any poetry and not just what we’d read in class, he immediately went to pull out his small collection of poetry books and share them with me.

My stepdad also majored in biology, and now he works as an interpretive naturalist at one of the metroparks about an hour north of here, so I wasn’t surprised to see that most of his poetry collection is what I would call “nature-y.” We flipped through the books together, and he had me read a few poems he thought were especially good. One in particular he suggested because it reminded him of me. It was in a book called Moment to Moment: Poems of a Mountain Recluse, by David Budbill, and it’s called “When I Get Depressed.”

“I get silent

and I stare

at nothing

all day long,

or I lie down

and read

the ancient masters

who move me

to even greater

depths of melancholy

and then,

refreshed and knowing

I am not alone,

I get up

and join the world

again.”

My stepdad was right. It is extremely like me. And I really like the poem too. I like how it’s very simple and to-the-point, but also thoughtful and relatable. The structure of the poem is really neat, too. The short lines and the way they’re organized on the page works really well, in my opinion, and I think it’s cool that the whole thing is actually only one sentence, but it still conveys so much meaning. “The ancient masters who move me to even greater depths of melancholy.” Yes yes yes, that is just awesome, word choice and meaning-wise. I also like the contrast between the first three stanzas and the last one—like, the last stanza can be read on its own and sounds really uplifting that way. Oh, and I like how the title of the poem is also like its first line. That’s clever.

I feel like this poem is so short and straightforward that there’s not much really to be said except “I like it” or “I don’t like it.” I happen to fall in the former category. And I also like writing about poems that I enjoy, so I thought I’d share this one.