Contemporary Poetry

: a web symposium  |  Spring 2006

The Invisible Bride by Tony Tost
Louisiana State University Press, 2004

“We share our codeine, jackals, bourbon. Good night, my darklings” (57), proclaims one desperate speaker in Tony Tost’s 2003 book, The Invisible Bride. This work is packed full of powerful and often confusing passages such as this. Although written in prose, it is a poetry book containing highly symbolic, loosely linked passages. However, each of the speakers in this book vividly cry out to the reader on every page, expressing both a disdain for the worldly suffering and a desire for transcendence to something beyond the limits of humanity’s intrinsically mortal state. The Invisible Bride depicts speakers who are seeking a worldly escape by deftly mixing images of the sacred with those of everyday life.

The world Tost depicts in his book is full of images of suffering. Many of his speakers are children struggling to understand the world around them. In (My father traveled a lot), the child speaker says: “When I was a child my bed was large and I, like a compass, turned in the night to face whatever direction I believed my father was headed” (4). The young speaker yearns for the presence of his father, who must venture into the world and endure suffering alone. By sleeping in the believed direction of his father, the child expresses his desire to be both closer to his father and to escape his own lonely world.

The speaker’s father would often travel “into the heart of disaster…the endless landscapes of Russia, Mongolia and China” (4). These long journeys would leave him helpless, doing virtually anything to stay alive. His father would document these difficult trips with “dozens of tiny cuts across the back of a small doll.” The poem suggests that the cuts represent visible whip-marks, which express the physical and emotional toll that the world takes on both the child and the father. These whip-marks call to mind the flagellation that Christ endured to save humanity from sin and suffering. Just as Christ offered himself in order to destroy eternal suffering, the boy’s father in The Invisible Bride offers himself up to the cruel world where “every child is a negro hung in chains on a tree,” in hopes that his son may escape it.

The poem suggests that the difficult journey that the speaker’s father takes is not an uncommon one. The speaker tells us that “to be a father is to be traveling at all times, through areas of holiness, and by doing so, acquiring holiness: when my father talked of God he pointed not at the sky but at his feet” (4). The child’s father endures the suffering that all fathers must face; the world takes a visible toll on fathers, yet they take the journey in order to acquire holiness not only for themselves but for their children as well. To the speaker, God is not a particular being, but a process of exploration and suffering through which holiness is conferred. One attains holiness by escaping the world through the process of being purged.

In (Aging is the great escape), The Invisible Bride once again depicts the need for a worldly escape by mixing images of the sacred and the commonplace: “God created airports because he needed to tell stories … an airport is a booth for pilgrims, a place to surrender the securities and simplicities of home” (8). The speaker is telling us that one must condemn the comforts of home and venture into the harsh world in order to experience God. This message is the same as Jesus’ call to abandon our worldly possessions and follow Him. To the speaker, airports are “signs guiding the lost towards more useful and fruitful tangents” and act to “usher His children into the clouds … a faraway land-of-lands.”

The speaker goes on to tell us that the humility of the traveler directly affects his adventures. “If a person is sincerely humble, the airport will keep its lanes simple and free so the traveler may be escorted without a problem” (8). Therefore, the poem reveals that God will guide and alleviate the worldly suffering of those who are virtuous and submit to His will. This is the goal to which the speaker seeks for his or herself; the speaker wishes to be in a “good place to enjoy a meal, to have someone tell me a story.”

However, the opposite is also equally applicable, for “if the traveler is arrogant, the airport has been known to clutter and confuse itself so the traveler must either wait uncomfortably or suck in his gut, his worldly arrogance, so he may pass through the gates” (18). In the speaker’s world, God has the ability to alter the airports so as to frustrate and punish all those who are not virtuous. Due to mankind’s inherently fallen state, each person is innately predisposed to sinfulness, and thus will experience discomfort in their travels through life. This discomfort will inevitably leave many to desire an escape. Although viciously physical punishment is not present in this poem, humanity is still depicted as a traveler who experiences a purgation of sins in order to be purified.

At another point, in the poem (My beard is a bridge), the speaker exclaims: “my beard is a bridge between my past and my face” (17). The poem suggests that beards are meant to mask people from the suffering of the world and God’s judgment. As avoiding pain is a natural human faculty, people attempt to grow beards that would allow them to escape suffering punishment for sinful action.

This particular speaker has many beards, showing his many attempts at avoiding distress. As a young child, because he was unable to grow a beard, the speaker drew a beard on his face with red ink. Later in his life, the speaker has a beard that causes his valentine to laugh at him, suggesting the notion that when we are judged, God will see through such superficial attempts at escaping worldly suffering. The speaker then goes on to expresses interest in the “rumor of an eternal beard” (17), a beard which would keep the wearer from experiencing pain or suffering. However, as it is only a rumor, the speaker realizes that to escape the inevitable suffering of the world is an impossibility.

The speaker seems to suggest that if a person has committed a great deal of sins, they will attempt to cover them with a large beard. However, these beards will inexorably look ridiculous to everyone else. He tells us: “the beard of Joseph Stalin is now twice the size of Russia,” commenting on the infamous tyrannical ruler who unsuccessfully attempted to conceal the fact that he murdered millions of his own people in gulags across Russia (18). It is at this point that the speaker realizes for himself that it is truly futile to attempt to conceal one’s sins behind a beard. He proceeds to tells us that “every beard has its thorn. / Bury your heads in the beard of sorrow, people. I shall sink my teeth into the beard of sorrows past.” The speaker thus gives up his attempt at escaping reality and decides to succumb to the suffering of the world. He recognizes that God will “bury us next to our beards;” when we are dead, we will no longer have masks to hide behind and will be judged for those sins which we committed during life (18).

The Invisible Bride’s amalgamation of sacred and commonplace images allows the book to depict speakers who yearn for a worldly escape. This profound desire is shown through various speakers in multiple loosely linked passages. Whether the otherworldly escape references are in terms of dolls, airplanes, or beards, the effect is always the same: the reader is left with a more creative and profound understanding of the Christian faith.

Further Reading

By Tony Tost

Fascicle . Ed. Tony Tost. 2006. http://www.Fascicle.com

Tost, Tony. “I Am Not The Pilot.” The Cortland Review . Issue 22. Feb. 2003. http://www.cortlandreview.com/issue/22/tost.html

Tost, Tony. “The Unquiet Grave: Imperfection is Profection.” The Unquiet Grave Blogspot. 2006. http://unquietgrave.blogspot.com/

About Tony Tost

Carter, Laura. “Invisible Bride.” NewPages. 2004. http://www.newpages.com/bookreviews/archive/reviews/invisible_bride.htm

Mayhew, Jonathan. “Tony Tost.” MiPo esias Magazine . Vol. 19.2. 2005. http://www.mipoesias.com/Volume19Issue2/reviews3.html

“Tony Tost.” The Academy of American Poets . 2006. http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1101