"Red Shift" - Explication

The poem, "Red Shift", is by Ted Berrigan. See pithy remarks for my personal comments.


In the poem “Red Shift”, Ted Berrigan suggests that the speaker is a wandering soul, perhaps a future ghost of himself, reminiscing the past. Using literary techniques, argument, imagery, and word choice, the poem expresses and explores what this spirit experiences during its visit on earth.

Berrigan thrusts the reader immediately into the poem with the starting phrase, “Here I am at 8:08 p.m.” (1). Along with the mention of the biting air and the month of February, the reader knows right away that the poem takes place during the winter, a time frequently associated with depression and dark times. Berrigan’s use of “indefinable ample rhythmic frame” (1) may mean that the speaker’s large form can not be described, possibly because it is a spirit. The speaker goes on talking about Allen and Frank, “Allen is a movie, Frank disappearing in the air” (4). This could be referencing real life American poets, Allen Ginsberg and Frank O’Hara, the latter of whom had influenced Berrigan’s literary works. As the poem continues on, “American poison liquid air” (3) and Calvados are being taken by the speaker, implying that it may actually be drunk. The speaker’s descriptive opening then transitions to a more grave light and tone, as can be heard when Berrigan himself is reading the poem.

“Love, children… money, marriage-ethics, a politics of grace” (9) are portrayed as “Up in the air, swirling, burning even or still” (10). It seems as though the speaker had lost everything it once possessed, and now, the possessions are dispersed among the air. Berrigan goes on and depicts a serious boy, a pretty, young woman, and a painter “who will never leave me” (15). Again, although the speaker is most likely seeing people in its past, these people may be allusions to acquaintances in Berrigan’s real life; the boy might be himself, while the woman is his wife and the painter could have been a best friend. The use of “the winter twilight at 6th / & Bowery in 1961” (11-12) hints that the speaker is in New York City. Berrigan himself lived in New York City for the latter part of his life. The speaker then brings up the song “California Dreaming”. According to the lyrics of the song, which were written by The Mamas & the Papas in 1963, an unspecified person stops into a church and pretends to pray. However, the speaker’s phrase “no, I won’t do that” (17) probably means it refrains from worshipping. Berrigan’s poem carries on, and continues to reference the recollections of a past life.

However, the speaker begins to contradict itself by saying “When will I die? I will never die, I will live / To be 110, & I will never go away” (18-19). Perhaps the speaker is drunk, and wonders when it will die. But assuming it is a spirit or ghost, the speaker will probably never “go away”. As if to reinforce the previous statement, Berrigan has the speaker say, “you will never escape from me who am always & only a ghost, despite this frame, Spirit / Who lives only to nag” (19-20). This further confirms the possibility that the speaker is a supernatural being. To prove that its form is not tangible, the speaker declares, “I’m only pronouns, & I am all of them” (21). The two concluding sentences seem to demonstrate the speaker’s last mustering effort to leave the reader with meaningful words before it departs from the world. The contrasting phrase, “Alone & crowded” (24), most likely means that the speaker is surrounded by many of its kind, but remains isolated because of its longing for the real world. The speaker subsequently glides into the air, leaving behind a hectic world, which in a way, still resides in him, since he concludes with, “The world’s furious song flows through my costume” (25).

The concept of ghosts and spirits has been around for centuries if not millennia. Such phenomena have always intrigued humans, for we dream of a life after death or communication with the dead. Thus, it is plausible that “Red Shift” deals with a ghost that returns to reminisce over the past, since Ted Berrigan’s imagery and writing style illustrate such an event. The spirit may even be Berrigan due to all the personal references he surreptitiously inserts into the poem.