Saeed Jones\u2019 \u201cLast Call\u201d describes a narrator\u2019s conflicting desire for a relationship with another man despite internal and societal barriers. Through imagery that emphasizes external darkness, Jones situates queerness with nighttime and smoke, evoking a sense of danger and scandal. In the beginning of the poem, he portrays the \u201cnight\u2019s\u201d mouth as a gun, implying a potential for physical harm within their relationship. Despite this perceived risk, the narrator cannot help but be drawn toward the danger when he physically pulls the man back into him, initiating their sexual relationship despite his conflicting feelings. In the middle of the poem, the lines \u201cI\u2019ve got more hunger than my body can hold. Bloated with want\u201d (16) portray the narrator\u2019s desire as intense and consuming, using hunger as a metaphor for sexual desire. The word \u201cbloated\u201d also implies that the narrator has consumed or is asking for too much in their relationship; his desire has reached the point of greed. This imagery positions the queer relationship at the center of the poem in a negative light, an element supported by continued imagery of darkness and drowning in the second half of the poem.<\/p>\n
Throughout the poem, Jones hints at the forces preventing the narrator from fulfilling his desires to be with the other man. Societal pressure to conform is implied through the narrator\u2019s need to \u201cwait for the moon to drown\u201d (16), implying that he must wait until all light is gone so that no one can see him before acting on his desire. The narrator\u2019s final act of being pulled down into a lake to be with the other man is both muddy, which symbolizes the emotional sense of being \u201cdirty\u201d for being in a homosexual relationship, and serves as a metaphor for being pulled down to hell, a potential reaction to homosexuality being considered a sin. The poem ends by implying that, despite the portrayal of this relationship as negative from the beginning, there is a \u201ccity\u201d beneath the surface of the lake \u2013 a sense of hope beneath the surface of the narrator\u2019s hesitance and self-hatred \u2013 which he is on his way towards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saeed Jones\u2019 \u201cLast Call\u201d describes a narrator\u2019s conflicting desire for a relationship with another man despite internal and societal barriers. Through imagery that emphasizes external darkness, Jones situates queerness with nighttime and smoke, evoking a sense of danger and scandal. In the beginning of the poem, he portrays the \u201cnight\u2019s\u201d mouth as a gun, implying … Continue reading Internalized Homophobia in Saeed Jones\u2019 \u201cLast Call\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5706,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344663],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5706"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1352"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1353,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352\/revisions\/1353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}