In the Suburbs is a short poem by the Jamaican-born American poet Louis Simpson. It was published in Simpson’s fourth poetry collection, At the End of the Open Road (1963). At the End of the Open Road won the Pulitzer Prize in 1964. Though “In the Suburbs” is one of Simpson’s shortest pieces, it is among his best-known and more admired works. In two brief stanzas, the poet described his response to materialism in the United States. Simpson moved to New York City from Jamaica in 1940, and he remained a critical but sensitive observer of American life until his death in 2012.
There’s no way out. You were born to waste your life. You were born to this middleclass life As others before you Were born to walk in procession To the temple, singing.
Simpson’s indictment of “middleclass life” seems harsh and judgmental. Yet his second stanza accepts that the life has a certain inevitability. Just as those of earlier civilizations were “born to” their processions, so suburban Americans follow their own predetermined destiny. The ritual of ancient worship is repeated, in a new form, in modern life. Simpson describes a kind of entrapment—”There’s no way out.” But he cannot blame the individual. His tone is resigned rather than angry.
Throughout his career, Louis Simpson sustained a powerful commentary on the realities of contemporary existence. Much of his quest was to balance his poetic sense for rarity and beauty with an understanding of the ordinary. Simpson wrote more than 15 volumes of verse in a long and varied writing career.