The Odd Yawn

In Anne Waldman’s “How the Sestina (Yawn) Works,” the poem transforms from a tired medium of art-for-art’s-sake into a platform for revolution, occupying the thin line between “deadbeat” and “upbeat” connoted by the word “beat poetry”. From the bored opening of the poem,

I opened this poem with a yawn
Thinking of how tired I am of revolution

The speaker establishes the notion that poetry has become overused for the cliché of revolution:

The television
Whew! It was getting to me personally,
I think it is like poetry
Yawn it’s 4 A.M. yawn yawn.

The preponderance of “yawn”s throughout the poem, onomatopoeically dramatizes a sense of nonchalance. The cyclical, repetitive nature of the sestina reinforces the sense of monotony on part of the speaker. The title of Walden’s poem highlights this trivialization: “how the sestina (yawn) works” is both trivializing and bathetic.
The volta comes occurs without any build-up, too sudden to be convincing. After decrying the triteness of the revolution portrayed on television and the boredom of poetry, the speaker jumps up, unleashes a primal yawn, and glorifies the revolution and poetry. The envoi of the sestina describes art as a lethal but beautiful force:

O giant yawn, violent revolution
Silent television, beautiful poetry
Most deadly methedrine
I choose you all for my poem personally.

The “yawn” becomes a rejuvenating act; the privileging of the voice of the poet over the voice of media “silent television” suggests the triumph of individual creativity in a time of mass-produced art. This is underscored by the establishment of authority of the poetic “I”: “I choose you all for my poem personally.” The speaker’s conformity to the sestina structure highlights a respect of authority and subversive power of form and art.
But one can’t ignore the hint of self-ironizing that undermines this poetic triumph. It’s humorous how the speaker elevates poetry in poem that is filled with bathetic lines that trivialize poetry:

I really like to write poetry
It’s more fun than grass, acid, THC, methedrine.

Ultimately, Walden’s poem illuminates the tensions in the poetry and ideals of the Beats. The speaker glorifies and beautifies the notion of revolution, yet perhaps suggests the revolution must be an inward, individual act, rather than a political act that is seen on television. The drawing of the revolution into the self constitutes a resistance so subtle as to be unreadable. Drugs, sex and art come together in the Beat generation to articulate an affront to social morality, creating a rather ambivalent form of revolution. Despite the overwhelming desire to write the individual self and individual desire on the social landscape, the undertone of self-deprecation and pessimism towards arts in the poem is perhaps, the inevitable effect of an ambivalent Bohemian resistance.