Critical appreciation of "Clusterf**katopia"

Clusterf***atopia
by Anonymous

Stucco induced haze,
Tracts of endless maze.
Garage sale monotony,
Cul de sac cacophony.

Lakeside concerts ‘n chairs,
Land of the rightside squares. 
Sans culture,
Tastes for the vulture. 

Glucosamine in the air,
Like an AARP fair.
How they roar,
Full of nighttime bores. 

Open community skies,
Look what belies.
Planned master disjointment,
Fly in the ointment.

SUV parade,
Lifestyle charade.
Manicured lawns,
Society’s pawns. 

Suburban sprawl,
Of a mindset crawl.
Eleven pm last call,
My golly what a ball.


Critical appreciation of  Clusterf***atopia

The poem is a six-stanza poem, with rhyming scheme of aabb, ccdd, ccee, ffgg, hhii, jjjj. It is infused with visual imagery normally found in (or almost unique to) the suburban areas, such as Garage sale, Cul de sac, Lakeside concerts ‘n chairs, AARP fair, Manicured lawns, Planned master and Open community skies.

In each stanza, the first three lines describe almost impartially the persona’s observation and he hits is with the forth line in each stanza with ridicule, mockery and scorn. Obviously, he doesn’t like what he sees and observes in the suburbs. And so, we can say that the tone of the poem is disdain or contempt. The theme: the seemingly ideal lifestyle in the suburban is void of life.

The title is important. Linguistically, “Clusterf***katopia” possibly is a blend of three words: “cluster”, “fuck” and “utopia”. “Cluster” is referring to the suburban cluster. The word also means that people or things in the suburb are the same or similar in so many ways. “Fuck” is a vulgar slang in this case used to express anger, annoyance and/or contempt. “Utopia” refers to “a community or society possessing highly desirable or near perfect qualities” (from wikipedia.com). However, it could also be a blend of “clusterf**k” and “utopia”. “Clusterf**k” is a vulgar slang which refers to “a chaotic situation where everything seems to go wrong. It is often caused by incompetence, communication failure, or a complex environment” (wordnik.com). In this sense, it is a completely different meaning from the blending of 3 words – that the suburban is actually chaotic beneath all the perfection that our eyes could see. Therefore, we can say that the persona, as much as he admits that the suburban cluster is ideal and near perfect, finds it disdainful and loathsome.

The structure and pattern are not organized in any specific manner, which indicates that the observation made by the persona is also very random. It’s like he just turns to his left and right and jots down what he sees. He drives around in his car, and notes all the things he sees from his car. There is s sense of frustration in his voice. Nothing is right in his eyes.

Stucco induced haze,
Tracts of endless maze.
Garage sale monotony,
Cul de sac cacophony.

The consonance in the words “haze” and “maze” suggests that he head is buzzing, like a headache. “stucco” is causing the haze, in his opinion, and the roads seem endless. The “garage sale” is boring and the community in cul-de-sac is in discord. All these perhaps cause his headache, which could be induced by frustration.

Lakeside concerts ‘n chairs,
Land of the rightside squares. 
Sans culture,
Tastes for the vulture.

For an American persona to be calling another American’s lifestyle “sans culture” is interesting. The US as a country doesn’t really have any specific traditional culture or custom, unlike, for instance, Asian, African or European countries. The word “vulture” invokes the image of scavengers, rotting-meat eaters which would eat almost anything. The persona equates the people who attend these concerts with vultures – tasteless creatures, who would like consume whatever presented to them.

Glucosamine in the air,
Like an AARP fair.
How they roar,
Full of nighttime bores. 

“Glucosamine” could refer to the aging group of the population in the suburb, and that they are everywhere. The word “roar” creates auditory imagery; that the presence of the elderly is “loud”, which indicates inescapable and pervasive – again, they are everywhere. And because they are old, the nighttime is boring. The word “full” is used to contrast “bores”, as if making fun of the elderly – full of activities, but boring ones.

Open community skies,
Look what belies.
Planned master disjointment,
Fly in the ointment.

The suburbs are carefully planned in the USA. In some places in California, the suburbs are planned so that the houses are on the hills and the roads are in the valleys. One of the results is we have open skies. The persona makes fun of this, and calls it “disjointment”. “Fly” it being filthy and dirty, could symbolize something offensive to the persona. “Ointment” is supposed to help relieve pain, but having a fly in the ointment spoils it. Therefore, we can say that the planned community is offensive to the persona.

SUV parade,
Lifestyle charade.
Manicured lawns,
Society’s pawns. 

SUV are common in the suburbs. The lawns are well-manicured as well. But to the persona, all these are just fake and pretense. Perhaps shallow. We could imply that the persona accuses the people who drives SUV and have manicured lawns are leading a shallow lifestyle; simply pleasing the society at large, so that they feel they belong there.

Suburban sprawl,
Of a mindset crawl.
Eleven pm last call,
My golly what a ball.

When the persona says “mindset crawl”, he scoffs at the mindset of the community. To him, they are stuck in their thinking in every way possible. That also implies that they are not interesting. “Eleven pm last call” could mean that they go to bed at 11 at night. The persona uses sarcasm when he says “My golly what a ball”. The phrase usually refers to something fun and exciting, but here, he uses it to sarcastically say that the people in the suburbs are having a blast going to bed at 11 pm.