Adi Chaham week 6: “TEN RESPONSES TO THE PHRASE “MAN UP” (CLEAN VERSION)” by Kyle "Guante" Tran Myhre

“TEN RESPONSES TO THE PHRASE “MAN UP” (CLEAN VERSION)” written by  Kyle "Guante" Tran Myhre gives 10 meaningful yet clever responses to the phrase “Man Up”. 

In this poem, Myhre decided to stick with his usual paragraph type format; however, this time, instead of writing the poem like an article or an essay, he wrote his poem as a list. 

    Throughout the poem, Myrhe mentions the topic of sexism, masculinity and male stereotypes.  

What I’ve noticed throughout Myrhe’s poems is that all the titles are relatively long and get straight to the point. While many poets and writers try to confuse people with their titles by making them unique or at times, irrelevant, Myhre always uses poems that entirely state what the poem is about, sort of like an informational article type of title. The title in this poem, like the others I’ve mentioned, goes straight to the point, telling the reader that the poem is about 10 responses to the phrase “man up”, leaving the reader to decide whether or not the poem interests them before they begin reading it.  

In response number 9, I felt as if the writer's life and personal feelings are being incorporated more into the poem. In the rest of the poem, Myrhe speaks to the more general population regarding these male stereotypes, sexism, and masculinity and how these things have affected our world by just saying the words “man up”, however, towards the end, and especially in the 9th response, you can hear the poet's voice more. The 9th response seems to me like his opinion and him expressing his voice as he states “ I want to be free, to express myself. Man up. I want to have meaningful, emotional relationships with my brothers. Man up. I want to be weak sometimes. Man up. I want to be strong in a way that isn’t about physical power or dominance. Man up. I want to talk to my son about something other than sports. Man up. I want to be who I am. Man up.” Response number 9 particularly caught my attention. In my eyes, it felt like a protest toward the statement “man up” and felt more personal to both myself and to the author while the rest of the poem stated passive aggressive responses to the main demand. 

I found this poem to be extremely powerful, showing how just this one phrase could have such a big impact on a person, better yet an entire sex. This phrase is also a male stereotype that  leaves many males, to not show their emotions, and real behavior, trying to be what people think of as a “true man”. 

1. I know what you’re trying to say. Man up means to do the difficult thing in the face of hardship, to take responsibility. As if women, and nonbinary people, never faced hardship. As if the people in my life who taught me responsibility were ever men.

2. You want to question my masculinity, like a schoolyard circle of curses, fine. Just remember: not every problem can be solved by “growing a pair.” You can’t arm-wrestle your way out of depression. The CEO of the company that just laid you off does not care how much you bench. And I promise, there is no lite beer in the universe full-bodied enough to make you love yourself.

3. Man up? Oh that’s that new superhero, right? Mild-mannered supplement salesman Mark Manstrong says the magic words “MAN UP,” and then transforms into THE FIVE O’CLOCK SHADOW, the massively-muscled, deep-voiced, leather-duster-wearing super-man who defends the world from, I don’t know, feelings.

4. Of course. Why fight to remove our chains, when we can simply compare their lengths? Why step outside the box, when the box has these awesome flame decals on it? We men are cigarettes: dangerous, poisonous, mass-produced.

5. Have you ever noticed how nobody ever says “woman up?” They might imply it, but it’s not like a thing people say. Maybe because women and the women’s movement figured out a long time ago that being directly ordered around by commercials, magazines, and music is dehumanizing. When will men figure that out? 

6. The phrase “Man Up” suggests that competence and perseverance, both generally good things, are also uniquely masculine. That women and nonbinary people—not to mention any man who doesn’t eat steak, drive a big pickup truck, and have lots of sex with women—are nothing more than background characters, comic relief, props. More than anything, though, it suggests that to be yourself—whether you wear skinny jeans, rock a little eyeliner, drink some other brand of light beer, or write poetry—will cost you.

7. And how many boys have to kill themselves before this country acknowledges the problem? How many women have to be assaulted? How many trans people have to be murdered? We teach boys how to wear the skin of a man, but we also teach them how to raise that skin like a flag and draw blood for it.

8. Boy babies get blue socks. Girl babies get pink socks. What about green? What about purple? What about orange, yellow, chartreuse, cerulean, black, tie-dyed, buffalo plaid, rainbow…

9. I want to be free, to express myself. Man up. I want to have meaningful, emotional relationships with my brothers. Man up. I want to be weak sometimes. Man up. I want to be strong in a way that isn’t about physical power or dominance. Man up. I want to talk to my son about something other than sports. Man up. I want to be who I am. Man up.

10. No.

https://guante.info/2022/05/31/manup/