Analysis of "Forty-Seven Minutes" by Nick Flynn

Poem Found Here: "Forty-Seven Minutes" by Nick Flynn

I've been here.  Many a times.  Teaching poetry to anyone is tough already.  Poetry is one of those forms of literature where there always as search for a bigger meaning in a short amount of words and time.  Yes, poetry has been used to teach critical thinking but not necessarily a love of literature.  Everything must mean something.

Well with this poem, the concept of everything is in question.

The poem starts out with a disorienting sense of time, "years later."  Maybe this poem is part of a collection or something is in conversation with this poem because the poem is not situated for me and  I don't think this poem is trying to do that in this way.

Anyway, the poem  takes place in a Texas high school classroom where the instructor is asking his students to "locate an image in a poem."  And it such a good class to have their heads bowed to the page.  A classroom of probably 30 odd teenagers apt and ready to explicate a poem, sure.

"After some back & forth about the grass & styrofoam cup, a girl raises her hand & asks, Does it matter?"  This question has such variable existential weight to it.  This question could only refer to this unit they're covering -- is this going to be on the test type of question.  However, the speaker elevates the question philosophically, "I smile--it is as if the universe balanced on those three words & we've landed in the unanswerable."  The humor comes out with such hyperbole of the moment.

But this is how it feels like sometimes when teaching.  That's explained later on in the poem.

The speaker that no it doesn't matter if "rain" (perhaps an image in the poem they are reading) can be classified as an image, idea, or "sound in our heads."  I feel the lines is trying to explain these points as though to test prep.  Like the question on the test is "what does rain mean in this part of the poem a) image b) idea c) sound d) all of the above."  As though any and every meaning of the poem has a correct way to do it, and is all calculable, scored into competency.  

But I digress, a bit too personal.  

The last sentence is what I'm actually thinking when teaching a class that I don't know how to answer the existential question of "why" that is so common with students, "But, I whisper, leaning in close, to get through the next forty-seven minutes we might have to pretend it does."

The "might" here is really important.  Without it, the last line is a funny confirmation that, yes, both parties are playing the game that this information is useless busy work in high school.  The "might" shifts the game.  The speaker can or cannot pretend this matters and so can the student.  And the ambiguity, like meaning, is answered by the individual for whatever path to go to.