Poem Explication:Red Shift by Ted Berrigan

Alex Jannuzzi
Prd 7 9/12/08
Poem Explication: Red shift By Ted Berrigan

In the poem, Red Shift By Ted Berrigan the poet suggests that a change has occurred within the speaker’s life that has caused him to become depressed and vent to the reader what is happening to the speaker mentally.

The speaker is going through a change from a woman leaving him. Now that she has, it sounds as of he will never be the same ever again. In the first stanza, he speaks of it being winter; even so the loss of this woman causes a chill to his soul. He says “The air is biting” showing it’s so cold that is so called “biting” at his whole person. He mentions drinking twice that being alcohol. This is something people do to get rid of their problems, their mental issues; they dround themselves in alcohol.


In the beginning where the changes first start to occur he states”I drink some American poison liquid” then he mentions it again saying “The calvados is being sipped on”. Quite often throughout the poem he speaks of air seeming ton be very concerned with it. This one would think, is the fact now he can’t come up for air because now he can’t breathe without that woman. He needs to be concerned now that woman was semi keeping him alive is now out of his life forever. He says “disappearing in the air” which is about one of his friend’s frank who is actually dead. This is another person gone out of his life that makes it harder for him to function.


The belief that he was married came about when he mentions that” smilingly attentive woman” then directly in that second sentence he says “love, children, hundreds of them, money” which are all things that people dream of when they first are newly weds and only in the beginning. He also says “marriage” which corresponds with the heartache that comes about in the stanzas to come.
To let the audience become more personal with him he tells of how they first meet. He says “not that practically a boy” showing that he was a child when he met her yet he still had adult feelings for her, saying “serious’ in one word even as a boy. He also called her a “pretty girl” showing he did care for her as she aged with him.


Changes occur within the speaker quickly. He says “when will I die? I will never die” like the pain of living is too much to bear and living now is worse than death itself. The speaker feels as though he “will live to be 110” then it will be too late for him to care by then. When the speaker says that “I will never go away and you will never escape from me who am always and only a ghost despite this frame, spirit who only lives to nag”, showing when he does die eventually he will haunt this woman. “Nagging” is an interesting word choice because it is so inappropriate to the circumstance of the speaker being a spirit and haunting the woman forever. He has changed for the worse. As the poem progresses toward the end he mentions “ I slip softly into the air” signifying the spirit of his being floating into the air taken awy from this as he vented to the reader ever so slightly.


The importance the theme is having someone there to witness your life. When you lose that person your life will never be the same. When the speaker lost this woman he changed for the worst because he cared so deeply for this woman.