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BBRNT2B? 2BORNOT 2BEE?
BBRNO2B? BBORNOT BEBE?
2BRNT2B? 2BRNTOB?
2BORWAT? CNTDCYD.
NDCISV. SLINGS. ARROWZ.
SEA OF TROUBLZ.
TODIE. PRCHNCE 2DREEEM.
YACKITY YACKYAK.
ITHINK 2MUCH. SHOULDI
MAYYBEE JSTDOIT?
“Hamlet”
from PL8SPK
by Daniel Nussbaum
Harper Collins, 1994
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“Hamlet” by Daniel Nussbaum appears in an unorthodox collection of poems, each of which derives its lexicon entirely from the list of vanity plates registered in the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Vanity plates are commonplace in a region, where the cult of fame, coupled with a dependency on the automobile, has turned every car into a potential, itinerant billboard, advertising the Hollywood celebrity of its owner to every other driver on the freeway. The slogans of such vanity provide a unique, poetic chance for drivers to express themselves creatively in seven characters or less.
Nussbaum sees the embyronic emergence of a new dialect growing out of the apparently random series of alphanumerals normally seen emblazoned on license plates. Imagine a language, in which each person can lay claim to a single phrase that only one person can speak and that no other person can thereafter use. Since each phrase must be completely individual in order to identify a certain vehicle, drivers who want to communicate the same message as another driver must often resort to an ingenious variation of orthography in order to express themselves.
Nussbaum points out, for example, that drivers have registered at least 150 versions of the word “awesome” (including AAAWSOM, AAHZUM, and AWSHUM), plus at least 150 versions of the phrase “excuse me” (including XQOOZME, XXKUZME, and XQZME). Nussbaum takes this highly restricted vocabulary and uses it to retell abridged, humorous versions of stories from the canonical tradition of literature. He preserves the uniqueness of each vanity plate by quoting it only once in any story, whereupon he deletes it from the available repertoire.
Nussbaum imagines that, someday, he might contact the owners of these specific vehicles, inviting each driver to bring the car to an auto show in a parkade, where Nussbaum might then line up the vehicles so that each one becomes a word in a vast sentence, otherwise dissolved and scattered throughout the rush of highway traffic. When stamped on a license plate, each phrase has the potential to become, quite literally, a vehicle for the conveyance of meaning—a metaphor for the etymology of metaphor itself (since the Greek word metapherein actually means “to transport”).
Nussbaum parodies the vanity of the modern, poetic enterprise, underlining the degree to which language itself has become increasingly regulated by bureaucracies that issue each of us a licensed identity based upon our ability to pay for it. Under such proprietary conditions, the critical question of “being” becomes a primary concern for the poet. The above excerpt, “Hamlet,” illustrates how such lingual poverty might bowdlerize the legacy of poetry. The poem in fact addresses the ambivalence of the modern writer, who must decide whether or not being a poet is even worth the hassle.
Nussbaum demonstrates, however, that despite the constraints of such bureaucratic philistinism, people do find surprising strategies for outwitting the verbal limits imposed upon their thought. While the owners of these vanity plates might participate in a debased economy of self-expression, such drivers do find clever tricks of abbreviation, which impart a maximal meaning to a minimal grammar. Each driver almost becomes an avant-garde poet, who must find a novel means of expression that distinguishes itself from the YACKITY YACKYAK of quotidian discourse.
It is a pleasure to see someone “discover” the brilliance of pl8spk. I’ve loved these books for years, and am glad to see them get some recognition. Full disclosure, the author is my friend, but I think my aesthetic judgement is relatively unclouded by that fact. It does add to my pleasure in the review, however.
I would add one thing that Mr. Bok either overlooks or considers too obvious to mention. Pl8spk is funny. There is a sense of joy, a celebration of a new language, a playfull exploration of the collective unconscious that permeates each story and poem. All the serious stuff is there, too, and Bok shows a deep understanding of it. Pl8spk is seriously funny.