Summary Of Useless Boys By Barry Dempster

The poem Useless Boys, written by Barry Dempster, is a short 34-line poem about two boys, the narrator and the addressed reader, who both grew up together with horrible fathers. The fathers aren’t described as how they are horrible other than that they live a “moth-life” (line 12), seeming to imply a short and dull life. This causes both boys to promise “not to be / like [their] fathers” (line 14-15). Despite the narrator seeming to follow his word, becoming successful despite losing his sight, the intended reader seems to be influenced negatively by these goals as he must constantly count his money and that he is “living in an air / conditioner” (line 29-30) which seems to imply that he lives a low-quality life if not in poverty.
My thesis for this comes from this idea of being influenced both positively

This idea is shown in the narrator and how he turned his life around. First it seems like he has a hard life with his companion as their fathers have the years showing and have “responsibilities wrecking / [their] heart” (line 10-11). This description of their fathers in combination with the moth-life description make it seem like their fathers only think about money. This is especially apparent in the line “a pay cheque over his / mouth” (line 8-9). However, evidence of the narrator turning his life around is shown in lines 24 to 28. He describes that “one of my / arms has turned into a pen. I’m / blind now but there is braille. I build / a better world on paper / then sell it”. Although losing one’s sight is by no means a positive thing, however, this description of building a better world on paper seems to be an extremely enjoyable passion of the narrator. This change in lifestyle seems to be exactly as positive and enjoyable as the Narrator had hoped his life to be and is likely due to the added pressure of striving to be better which would have pushed the reader to strive for