Two Hours on the Train

1. Why do you think the poet chose a train journey to structure this poem?

2. The poem is written in free verse (no rhyme or meter), with no punctuation, and no enjambment of lines. How do these choices fit the poem?

3. As the poet reruns the film of his life, he gives half an hour for childhood, and half an hour for prison. How might they be equivalent? In what way is childhood like prison?

4. Time is important in this poem. If you look closely, you will notice that the minutes and years fail to add up. Is the poet bad at math? Or is it a poetic strategy? What clue might phrases such as “on average,” “about”, “or so” provide about the poet’s intention? What meaning do you take from the slippage of time? 

5. When you learn that Abdellatif Laâbi was jailed, tortured, and exiled, does it change your reading of the poem? How do you understand the narrator’s experience of time now?

6. Exercise: Write a version of Two Hours on the Train, about your life.

a. Choose a conveyance (i.e., unicycle, bus, sailboat) as a metaphor for your own life’s journey.

b. Choose a time scheme (i.e., three minutes, five days, six months) and portion out time for various life episodes, altering time’s linearity.

c. Follow Laâbi’s structure loosely, along these lines:

   During [three minutes] on a [unicycle]
I [replay] the [race] of my life
[five seconds] for [skinned knees]