We Are Not Responsible

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2002

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“We Are Not Responsible” is a parody of airline announcements originally published as a prose poem in one paragraph with no lineation. Later reprints break it into 21 lines and five stanzas. It does not follow a rhyme scheme or formal meter structure, but is crafted around replacing words and phrases within instructions that are familiar to people who have been in American airports.

Mullen is deeply influenced by the 1960s Oulipo poetry group. She was part of the creation of Noulipo, a 2005 conference dedicated to continuing the poetics of constraint of the Oulipo movement (Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics p. 288). While many Oulipo constraints are mathematical, the replacement format used in “We Are Not Responsible” can be considered a kind of constraint outside of traditional forms of poetry. Going outside poetic traditions is also emblematic of the Language (or L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E) movement of poetry from the 1970s and 80s. Airline announcements are not usually considered poetic; they are not like the form of a sonnet.

Orality of Intercom

Airline announcements are a kind of shared oral, and aural, experience. Mullen draws upon a kind of modern orality. The repeated announcements over the airport’s intercom systems are familiar to the ears of many Americans who fly in the post-9/11 era. These announcements play all over the terminal(s), and generally come from an authoritative and anonymous source. The familiar intercom messages are pre-recorded and play on an endless loop. This is mimicked in the prose structure of Mullen’s poem found in her book Sleeping with the Dictionary. Without line or stanza breaks—or paragraph breaks—Mullen’s poem resembles the ceaseless flow of the intercom.

There are also less far-reaching announcements played through speakers at individual airport gates where one might be able to see the flight attendant making the announcement. However, Mullen’s focus is on the most automated and far-reaching announcements. Mullen uses the qualities of anonymous authority inherent in these kinds of intercom systems to craft a speaker in her poem—the speaker as a system rather than a human being.

Repetition

As well as mimicking the endless repetition of airport announcements in the structure of her prose poem, Mullen uses repetition of specific words and phrases that can also be seen in the lineated versions. One important example is the use of “we” repeated at the beginning of the first four lines (or first four sentences in the prose version). This plural “we” invokes the royal “we” in that it represents a system of power, not an individual human. It is a “we” that must be obeyed, and the immediate repetition of the “we” in the poem makes the presence of power feel daunting and inescapable.

In contrast, three of the poem’s sentences—or lines—begin with the word “you.” These appear in stanza four (Line 13 and 14) and five (Line 19) in the lineated version of the poem. The repetition of “you” at the beginning of sentences is almost lost towards the end of the prose poem—two instances of “you” fall near the right-hand side of the page of justified text and the other “you” comes at the beginning of a sentence in the middle of the page. The “we” appears on both sides of the page—left and right—in the prose version, showing a larger presence than (or one that encapsulates) the “you.” The “you” is lost in the wall of text in Mullen’s book, or one must scroll down their screen to find it in the lineated version published online. The contrast in these repeated pronouns illustrate the difference in power.