“The ‘N’ on a Bridge”

by Gary Inbinder

As Don says, this poem is “very culturally encrypted.”

First question: Which Napoleon does the “N” refer to; Napoleon I, or his nephew Napoleon Le Petit?
Second question: What does ”Lucretian pleasure” mean within the context of this poem?
Third question: Why does the poet refer to “Crimean cognac?” They might make brandy in the Crimea; I don’t know. But cognac comes only from a specific region in France.

The references to the Crimea, and the “N” on the bridge might refer to the Crimean War, and the Pont d’Alma, which was built by Napoleon III to commemorate the British-French victory over the Russians.

Lucretius was a first century B.C. Roman Epicurean philosopher and poet, and the allusion to “Lucretian pleasure” may be a reference to some famous lines from his De Rerum Natura I:

Pleasant it is, when winds disturb the surface of the vast sea, to watch from land another’s mighty struggle.

We have the imagery of the “N” on the bridge tossing about like a ship in a storm, and the cool observer making associations and viewing the rise and fall of emperors and their empires — and all other things, for that matter — from a detached perspective.

Finally, the references to Lacan and Julia Kristeva. I suppose someone who has studied the work of Lacan and Kristeva might have some interesting things to say about why the poet encrypted the poem the way he did, and why I attempted to decode it the way I did, but that person isn’t me.