Curriculum Vitae by Samuel Menashe
"Curriculum Vitae" by Samuel Menashe is a poignant lyric poem that explores the life of a poet through a nontraditional lens. The title, which translates to "course of life" in Latin, typically refers to a summary of one's professional achievements, but Menashe subverts this expectation by focusing on the internal struggles and contemplative moments of a poet's existence rather than a conventional career path. The poem is structured in two stanzas characterized by a careful syllabic organization, which reinforces the theme of introspection.
The speaker, likely reflecting Menashe himself, portrays the experience of being a "Scribe out of work," confronting moments of creative block and existential uncertainty. Vivid imagery captures the tension between inspiration and desolation, suggesting that the pauses in creativity are as integral to the poetic process as the act of writing itself. The second stanza shifts to a more personal perspective, revealing the poet's isolation and lack of recognition, yet it also highlights the profound insights he gains through this solitude.
Menashe's use of simple yet impactful language creates a compact emotional landscape, inviting readers to engage deeply with the nuances of the poet's life. Through this exploration, "Curriculum Vitae" offers a reflection on the complexities of artistic existence and the delicate balance between struggle and revelation.
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Subject Terms
Curriculum Vitae by Samuel Menashe
First published: 1986, in Collected Poems
Type of poem: Lyric
The Poem
“Curriculum Vitae” is a short lyric in two stanzas. It is written in verse that is not rhymed, but which uses the number of syllables in a line to organize the poem. The title means “course of life” in Latin. It refers to the brief biographical account that people (particularly academics) usually include when applying for jobs or other positions. In this poem, the phrase does not refer to an ordinary vocation: It refers to the tasks and experiences that go along with the vocation of being a poet. The title is partially ironic. When one normally hears this phrase, one expects a list of previous occupations or achievements. Instead, the poet presents a stark yet highly vivid picture of the basic texture of his daily life.
As the poem is about the life of a poet, the speaker of the poem is probably Samuel Menashe himself. The poem opens with the image of a “Scribe out of work.” It is the poet himself, whom the reader assumes is not employed in a conventional, wage-earning job. This, though, is not the only meaning here. In the second and third lines, it is revealed that the poet is “At a loss for words/ Not his to begin with.” The truer meaning of being out of work has to do with the momentary lapse in his poetic inspiration. The poet cannot think of what words he should write.
The first stanza concludes with a scene of the poet standing at his window, waiting for the inspiration to come so that he can write more poetry. By this time, though, the reader is alerted to this poem’s nonidealistic view of the artist. The artist does not exist in a realm of perpetual rapture. The fallow moments of standing at the window are not the opposite of poetry; they are the very pauses of contemplation from which poetry may emerge.
The second stanza begins with the poet climbing up a set of stairs, presumably to his home. These are stairs that he has climbed over and over. Yet the image conveys not a sense of weariness and repetition, but one of suspense as it leads to the poem’s ending. Once the poet unlocks the door of his apartment, the reader is made aware of everything he has and does not have. He does not have a family or a steady job. His recognition by the outside world is so meager that he has “No name where I live.” Yet this namelessness is a paradoxical boon for his poetry. The poet is likened to an animal, alone in his lair. His power, though, is not an aggressive one, but one that turns inward. At the end, the poet sees that he has “one bone to pick/ And no time to spare.” The poet confronts his frailty and his limits, yet in doing so, he comes to know what it is to live a poetic life.
Forms and Devices
Considering that it is so short and uses such simple language, “Curriculum Vitae” is a very difficult poem. The language is so compressed that it is left up to the reader to supply the connections the author does not provide. There are no words wasted; each one is crucially important.
Rhyme is not the central organizing feature of the poem. In the second stanza, there are three end words that rhyme. These words are “stairs,” “lair,” and “spare.” This rhyme helps build up the intensity toward the self-knowledge won at the poem’s close. Yet the poem’s tight organization comes mainly from word choice. Most of the words in the poem are of one syllable, with a small few being of two. The brevity of the words fortifies the minimal, pared-down atmosphere of the poem. The language, like the poet’s emotions, is stripped to the essential. The number of syllables in each line of the poem is also important. They are never fewer than four nor more than six. The syllable lengths provide a backbone for the poem, rigorously reining the plight of the poet in a network of form. This taut intensity makes the long, six-syllable lines peaks of energy and aspiration. It also makes lines such as “Alone in my lair” all the more affecting because the sense of loneliness in the poem is expressed by the loneliness of the few short words that make up the line.
The language used in “Curriculum Vitae” at first seems disorienting. Many of the phrases in this poem would be clichés if used in ordinary language. Examples of this are “Time and again,” “Biding his time,” and “At a loss for words.” They do not appear clichéd in the poem, because they alone are virtually all the language that the poem has. Thus, they take on the urgency of the poem’s emotional situation. The reader’s empathy for the work of the poet is strengthened by the awareness that the building blocks of his art are not ready-made pieces of beauty, but the same jaded truisms with which everyone else operates.
The control maintained in “Curriculum Vitae” also makes the subject matter less exclusively personal. The poet is not indulging himself in self-pity; the poem regards him with, if not total objectivity, at least a sober detachment. This is partially achieved by the way the first stanza describes the situation from a third-person vantage point. Only in the second stanza, after the reader has focused on the poet from an external viewpoint, does he speak in the first person. The poet stages the transition between these two viewpoints by using the word “time” as the last word of the first stanza and the first word of the second stanza. The internal and external may merely be two ways of approaching the same subject, but the poet wants the reader to see both sides. By doing this, he signals that he does not wish approval as much as understanding.