"Ascension"

Paul Guest, paralyzed in a bicycle accident at age twelve, is an American poet whose life seems worthy of a healthy dose of self-pity, yet he forces nothing of the kind on his reader.  His first collection of poems, entitled The Resurrection of the Body and the Ruin of the World, acknowledges the mishap of his circumstance, but defies the attribute of victim.  Guest considers various disasters, diseases, and disabilities without such vexations usually suggested by society.  One poem in particular, “Ascension,” discusses disability and one perception of it as a prison, comparing it to other forms of life imprisoned.  Guest’s speaker in “Ascension” recalls life before his accident, a life commingled with his brother, a boy who posses a weak soul, and life and healing after the accident that broke him.  The speaker compares the lives of the two boys as they grow into men, the choices they make, and the consequences of their choices.  Disability plays a role, of course, but a role far from the central concern of the poem, a role that defers to two boys who decide whether healing, and specifically emotional healing, will take place, or not.

            “Ascension” tells the story of two brothers, one born on the day Elvis Presley died, and the other, old enough to remember the occasion of his birth.  The older brother recalls pacing the floor as his mother labors.  In later years, the family jokes to the younger brother that some part of Elvis passed into him, that their souls mingled in the air, but later deciding this is an unfortunate comparison, given the younger brother’s weak soul.  The speaker, the older brother, then discusses the day of his accident, the day his life changed forever. 

            Essentially, Guest uses art as an equalizer, a method of compensation, if you will, in this poem.  Elvis Presley, as everyone knows, was a famous rock and roll singer.  By mingling the souls of the weak brother and Elvis Presley, Guest establishes a level playing field for the two brothers, given that the older brother is the speaker of the poem.  Music and poetry serve to equalize the two brothers, regardless of the injury and subsequent disability the older brother suffers.  Guest’s speaker expects silence from God, perhaps for allowing the accident to change the course of his life.  But by bringing the two brothers together through art, their lives remain connected.  They have no reason to separate, regardless of disability, regardless of the weaker brother’s subsequent stint in prison. 

Guest’s use of the prison metaphor in this poem questions which brother actually is in prison; the one confined to a wheelchair who leads an active, productive life, or the one actually in prison, the one who actually is free of nothing.  The reader is free to decide.