Shopping Sonnet and American haiku:

Loving to shop, and buying American
By Anne-Marie Oomen
Sun contributor
With more than a little guilt, I admit I love to shop. Since my mother introduced me to shopping discount at Robert Hall’s in Muskegon back in the sixties, I have enjoyed it. We are hunter-gatherers, right? That impulse is in all of us. I’m doing the gathering, right, and some hunting, albeit for adornment, but who’s quibbling. Besides this ancient impulse, contemporary research indicates we all enjoy some manner of creative expression. Non-artists find creative expression in four major ways: gardening, home decorating, food and, you guessed it, fashion and personal adornment. By extension then, isn’t shopping a part of creative expression? Well, it is a “making” of sorts. Putting together the right outfit for the right occasion is like writing a good poem. Yes, I am part of the great American epic of shopping.

Recently my young friend, Gretchen, said my love of shopping surprised her. Gretchen explained she associated most shopping and particularly shopping around various holidays, with a kind of ditzy, un-thinking consumerism. I had to think about my glib “hunter/gatherer” attitude. Am I now a ditzy unthinking consumer writer using my hunter-gather-creative-endeavor rationale to cover manic shopping I can’t in all honesty justify? How had I missed this?
I consider my shopping history. In my Bohemian twenties, I was a starving student, a familiar of thrift shops and second hand stores — which I still haunt though not for the same reasons. In my thirties, as my income stabilized, I gave over to spending, not foolishly, but with more freedom than I had in my twenties. During that time, I must admit to more than one occasion of manic, ditsy consumerism. (Yes, what does one do with three Gucci knock-off handbags?) But now, firmly gripped by middle age, I am aware of shopping no less avidly, but with a more poetic approach, apt I hope for a writer. I tend to buy elegant and functional, classy and long-term. With a hint of splash now and then. My shopping used to be free verse, now it’s a sonnet.
Stay with me on this. It’s the metaphor part.
When you write a formal poem like a sonnet, it has a strict structure. It’s not free verse; it’s contained. It has a specific number of lines, rhythm and rhyme, and it’s got substantive meaning. Now I know this is a stretch but if you look at shopping in a certain way, it can be a metaphor for the sonnet. Shopping too is contained and controlled by basic elements: budget, need, and desire — like the formal elements you’d find in a poem. A good sonnet is balanced — it stays with the form. A good shopping event feels the same. If budget is in control, I don’t buy anything. Boring. Too much form. If need is in control, I buy only what is necessary and feel pretty drab about it. If desire takes over, I get a lot of creative satisfaction but I’ve lost control of the budget — the form of the sonnet — and have usually purchased something that will hang in the closet breeding dust mites. It seems pretty obvious that balance is what it’s all about. Honor thy budget (I am the sale queen), buy what you need, put some color in it when you can. Though I must admit to the occasional lush indulgence of an impulse buy, I’ve controlled budget-busting sprees—no more epic credit card bills — with the sonnet of those three elements. Simple, huh?
Not anymore.
We are in a new world. This is not news though we tend to put our heads in the sand about it. And this is where friend Gretchen’s remarks gain purchase — pun intended. As our consciousness of world economies and environmental issues rises, so simple a thing as how we shop becomes a major consideration of how we live as Americans. Shopping for clothing, gifts, food and luxury items now has an immense impact on the economies of the world, this country and our local vendors.
Are we buying our way into self-destruction?
I recently read an article on buying American — or at least buying in the northern hemisphere. OR, (and this may be politically incorrect) not buying “Made in China/Thailand/Indonesia/India/etc” for all the obvious reasons: sometimes unfair labor practices, effects on American workers and economy, unregulated manufacturing practices (just look at the toy industry), and perhaps most of all, the effect on the environment — few controls for chemicals in factories, little pesticide/herbicide limits where they make fabrics or grow food — not to mention the pollutants released and resources destroyed getting the goods here. (American farmers have more limits on their use of pesticide and herbicide than most international growers. Ask for country of origin for your fresh produce and buy local if you can.) These circumstances add yet another element to the sonnet-shopping. What happens is that the epic shopping which became the sonnet spree is reduced to (and the irony of this is not lost on me) a haiku moment — a few lines terse with power.
Here’s an example.
It’s time for my annual trip to buy underwear. It occurs to me to review the underwear I’ve already got. What are the countries of origin for the panties of my past? I rifle through the drawer, using reading glasses to peer at the tiny labels. Wow, my underwear has many countries of origin! China, Thailand, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Vietnam (no surprises there) but also Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica and — get this, an exotic — Portugal. I am amazed at how international my underwear is — it could represent the United Nations right there in one drawer. I have never before noticed my global taste in lace.
It brings the problem of buying American uncomfortably close to home.
But I try. I like to buy my underwear at Macy’s — yes, I know — that American behemoth of a department store. I browse through shelves and racks of satin and frill, checking labels. I find 10 different lines of underwear in all designs and sizes but not one “Made in USA” brand. I can’t quite believe it. I ask the woman at the counter if she knows which panties are Made in USA. She looks startled. She has never been asked this question. We walk among bras and shapewear and slips. She doesn’t find any Made in USA underwear either. She calls her manager. The manager doesn’t know but calls someone else to find out. After a 10-minute wait, the news comes back. No American underwear in this Macy’s. I walk out of the store in shopping shock, empty-handed, wondering where the poetry went. Where can I find clothing (underwear included) that I like but still buy and support American workers, vendors and simultaneously reduce environmental burdens?
I end up at the Cottonseed in Glen Arbor where I confess my concerns to Ann Obershulte, the manager of the store. She doesn’t yet sell underwear but she’s working on it. But when I ask about American brands, she smiles and says, “Oh here,” as if it was simple, and introduces me to Blue Canoe, Earth Creations, BKg & Company, and several others. All Made in USA. She’s made it a mission to find attractive products made in this country.
But she also complicates the issue. She explains that she researches clothing to find products made close to home, but she also looks for manufacturers who use fair trade practices — in many countries. This may include cottage industries and organic materials, or materials made close to the site of assembly where the local economies are supported. So she carries European lines and a couple of Indonesian lines where her research has confirmed that these smaller companies are operating under quality practices. She also carries a few products that are made in China.
So, now I’m left with the more complex elements of fair trade and far shipping coupled with mass vs. small production. How many additional hydrocarbons go into the atmosphere if I buy fair-trade Lithuanian? Even if the company has fair trade practices and supports women in cottage industries, what went in to the water/air to get the products here? And if all the fair trade, organically produced elements are in place, and the products are beautiful and well-made? The price goes up. I buy one Lithuanian piece and one American piece, an American haiku of a shopping spree and far less than if I bought based on price and desire. I feel fine about it. I’m especially comforted by Ann’s dedication to conscious retailing.
I am a person who likes to shop. I buy goods. But I am also a poet and so economy, whether with words or shopping, is a practice I get. Poems often start with questions. In this case, what does it mean to buy “goods?” Good materials, good production practices, good labor practices, safe factories, healthy products, fair wages, safe environmental practices, nonpolluting manufacturing and shipping? I realize all these things now play in to what I buy. I want to do the right thing as much as I want to find the right words. How do I shop with wisdom and practicality? How do I balance need and desire? How do I shop American without breaking my budget? How much more am I willing to pay for a product made here? Twenty percent? Twenty-five? And what if my circumstances changed? What if I didn’t land squarely in that now-vanishing middle-income range? What would I do if could afford the $10 T-shirt made in China, but not the $20 one made in the USA. If I’m clothing a family here in this country, I’m paying attention to those realities. If I buy a new purse made in India, and don’t buy one of Leelanau Trading Company’s lovely currier bags, what is the difference? The currier bag will last a decade, is classic in design, and if anything goes wrong, I can turn to the vender who is a member of my community. I can’t do that with the Indian purse. How much more am I willing to pay for that? But it also means I commit for the long haul — a piece to keep for a long time. And what about gifts? If I gift a small painting by local artist Mary Sharry instead of a huge basket of fruit from Australia and New Zealand, on how many levels do I save? If I give a guest pick-up to Sweeter Song farm as a gift to a friend who comes here once a year, does that person remember to buy local when she goes home? Does it matter?
It all matters. It matters how we think about what and where we spend our money. It matters where it goes and who it goes to. I’m not a spendthrift — despite what my husband might say. I’m also not a fear monger. I don’t want to say that our economy is falling apart because we buy from China — but I know I need to grapple more thoughtfully with today’s shopping poem. I need to address the basic elements again—only this time they are not only budget, need and desire — they are who made it, what is it made from, under what circumstances was it made, where did the materials come from and how did the product get here? How long will it last? What are the quality issues verses the “cheap” issues? I have to address the larger picture — this is an epic poem of complicated sound and sense — or I am going to pay a high price and suffer a greater loss still.
So here are the formal elements I’m putting myself under for this new era of shopping.
1. Check labels and Buy USA if at all possible and as close to home as I can when it’s not. If what I want was made far away, do I need it?
2. Buy local/regional products whenever I can. Buy or make home-made.
3. For gifts, buy from local artists and artisans who make conscious, long-lasting environmentally sound work. Buy true beauty.
4. Decide how much more I will pay for “home-country made” and let my favorite venders know so they may research those companies.
5. Ask venders what lines they carry and if they know those companies’ labor policies or trade practices.
6. Educate myself about companies that have fair trade policies or sound environmental production and let venders know that I am interested.
7. Strive to balance all the elements of “good” in gift-giving, food shopping, adornment.
8. Make the shopping sonnet and the American haiku work with the epic poem of world balance.
9. Buy less, then once in a great while, give in to desire. But not too often.
10. Don’t go back to Macy’s.
Anne-Marie Oomen has written Pulling Down the Barn and House of Fields, both Michigan Notable Books, and Un-coded Woman, a collection of narrative poems. She is currently writing a collection of essays Finding (MY) America. She is chair of Creative Writing at Interlochen Arts Academy.