Robert Creely

“OhNo”

If you wander far enough

You will come to it

And when you get here

They will give you a place to sit

For yourself, in a nice chair,

And all your friends will be there

With smiles on their faces

And they will likewise all have places.

                In Robert Creely’s poem “Ohno” he explores the fundamental concepts of life after death. Though he never says the word “death” literally, the speaker implies that your soul is wandering away from life, meeting the people you had lost during life. To create this idea, the speaker first gives it a grave (no pun intended) tone, that illustrates the idea of walking away from your usual so-called “bubble”. Wander, in connotation, means to walk away aimlessly without any true guide. If the speaker was implying life, the speaker would have used a different word like “follow” or “steer” because life is practically set up for an individual, making them, if only staying the process of life, not confused or aimless. The speaker tries to use this in the first stanza to bring upon the idea that death is isolation, but when the speaker hits the last line of the first stanza the speaker brings in the word “They”. They, a word for camaraderie, implies that the end of the journey there are new set of beings ready to accept the individual, placing the speaker in an unusual atmosphere that is different than before. These people could be angels, dead relatives, or merely people who have died in general.  

                In the second stanza, Creely develops a positive yet cryptic tone that implies that the place the individual landed is not a regular place. The speaker brings affectionate words like “friends” and “smiles”. But when read the whole stanza together, it brings upon a creepy feeling that these smiling friends are not smiling to be friendly but because they were waiting for him. The speaker says, as if getting for the speaker’s entrance toward this new world, “for yourself, in a nice chair”, implying that the friends had made a permanent place for him there. The point of view also develops a creepy feeling toward the piece. The point of view is second person, but it also acts as if the speaker is still talking about himself retelling a story. The speaker is retelling it so to the point and descriptive to the scene it makes it seem like a trap, rather than a welcoming. The speaker uses lines in the poem like, “they will likewise all have places” and “And when you get there/they will give you a place to sit”. The control that this character does not have shows a sign that the speaker will be there permanently, rather than a nice visit. The speaker obviously knows this as it is happening by the other characters awkward and feels a lack of control. The speaker, knowing there is no going back, takes the seat and joins the camaraderie.