Many Keys, One Passageway

While G. C. Waldrep’s collection of poetry Disclamor is remembered for its battery poems, it also contains a variety of other poems, each unique in its style and form.  A poem that I found particularly interesting is “Hotel d’Avignon.”  This poem appears to reflect Waldrep’s Christian influence through its references to fellow Christians, bars, and doors.  It follows a free verse form like the battery poems.  The lines are not indented in unusual ways; however there are some cases of enjambment.  In this poem, a man is searching for a key to a passageway.  He can’t find it so he decides to make one of his own out of paper and is proud about the final product.  He lets himself into a passageway and begins observing people along the way.  The religious people around him disapprove of his manipulation with the doors and cringe at the sight of his man-made key.  In this scenario, the key could represent a man-made or alternative means of obtaining Christianity.  The religious group could represent Waldrep’s Amish background and they could be frowning at his alternative form of Christianity.  If this is not the correct interpretation in Waldrep’s case, this is a possible explanation for the hidden meaning behind this poem.  It reflects on the tendency of Christians or believers of any faith to look down on those who have left or taken a short cut to get there.  Towards the end of the poem, the persona developed in the poem ponders the repercussions of future keys and end with a quote from a motherly figure, “Light is untidy, my mother used to say, clucking gently.  You must collect the rays scattered about you.”  In the context of this poem, I interpret this quote to mean that there is no nice, or tidy, route to your destination.  It should be our goal to make the best out of whatever materials we have around us.