National Impalement Statistics

Back to the topic of detachment and dark humor, this next poem may be the epitome of it.

National Impalement Statistics

One out of eight deaths occurring in the home

or on picnics

is impalement-related. Four

thousand and eleven people die

in home accidents in the USA each year (on average

over the past decade), so

that means 501.375 people die

of home impalements each year.

Two hundred and eighty-seven people die on picnics

each year in the USA, therefore 35.875 (one does not

round off human beings!) people die

by impalement

on picnics, mostly by fork, but many more than one might expect

by toothpick, particularly

in the Northeast region of the country.

The denotative: sharp object

enters one part of body

and, sometimes, emerges from another part of body, often,

though not always, ending in expiration.

One loves

the exceptions: he who lives with the shaft of a golf club

skewering his neck

and learns to walk sideways through doors; she who lives

with a long sliver of ice, ever unmelting,

in her chest…The home

is a bruised and burning place

and it lives a worm,

and the picnic, the picnic

is eating on the ground

as leopards do

when they are not eating in the trees.

This poem’s detached tone comes from its reliance on (to use Professor White’s lecture) rhetoric over imagery or “made-ness.” It is literally rattling off statistics in a totally matter-of-fact manner. Several sentences begin with or involve “but” or “although” or some word related to them. The poem treats death humorously as it discusses people dying during picnics and an impaled-but-living man walking through doors sideways so his golf club appendage won’t smack against the walls. In this case, the use of the impersonal third-person (not sure of the exact grammatical term for this) makes the poem even more removed. “One loves the exceptions,” “one does not round off human beings,” “but many more than one might expect,” etc. The speaker never identifies himself nor addresses anyone in particular.

Trope and trust in the speaker

Trope figures prominently in A Cradle Place as Lux uses it to develop bizarre subject matter found in many of the poems. In “Terminal Lake,” Lux writes about the lake,

“All’s blind down there, and cold./ From above, it’s a huge black coin,/ it’s as if the real lake is drained/ and this lake is the drain…” “It’s a huge black coin” isn’t an extravagant metaphor but it does a good job of helping us imagine the physical shape (circular) and color (black) of the lake. In “asafetida” he writes,

The good, good thing for you

as prescribed by another, bitter

to the taste,

and, too, it stinks

like a neck after a boot heel is lifted,

for a moment, from it.

Like an eely

spike in a sinus. A horse-choking pill

put in a plunger

and shot down your throat—it’s good

for you, will improve you, you need it,

put a little honey on this tiny bomb

and take it down, take

it right down.

Wow, this “good, good thing” is compared to an “eely spike in a sinus,” “a horse choking pill,” a “tiny bomb” and its stink is compare to a “neck after a boot heel is lifted.” All these similes and metaphors in such a short poem and about one object definitely places great importance on the object. The problem is, this trope doesn’t give us much concrete imagery. I, for one, can’t really imagine what a “neck after a boot heel is lifted” smells like, or what an eely spike in a sinus looks like. It seems as though Lux doesn’t really want us to have a grasp on what exactly this “thing” is or what it smells and looks like. the speaker does call it a pill, but the fact that he has compared it to such strange things makes me take that statement with a grain of salt. If he calls it an eely spike in a sinus then I really can’t know if he is actually stating that the thing is a pill or it is just another odd metaphor. I think this dilemma is related to our discussions on whether we can “trust” certain speakers. It certainly appears to be something that others claim is a medicine, but we can’t know that it is an actual pill.

A Cradle Place by Thomas Lux

The first things I noticed about this book as a whole were the disturbing and/or comical titles of many of the poems. Titles like “Flies So Thick above the Corpses in the Rubble, the Soldiers Must Use Flamethrowers to Pass Through,” “Can’t Sleep the Clowns Will Eat Me,” “guide for the Perpetually Perplexed,” “Three Vials of Maggots,” and many others. Here’s “Three Vials of Maggots.”

Three Vials of Maggots

were collected from the corpse

found lying in a field

near a small stream. From these the lab can tell

at what time the dead one died.

The have schedules, the flies.

Some lay eggs

which hatch to maggots

which consume the corpse. Others come to eat flies, maggots, eggs.

Hide beetles arrive to clean the gristle.

It’s an orderly arrangement.

What the maggots do

they do for you.

The first notable observation is how interconnected the title and poem are. The title explicitly states the occasion of the poem and also acts as the first line of the poem. Many times we say that any title acts as a first line and this is an extreme as the first line of the poem (the real one) would not make sense without the title beginning it. This heavy reliance on the title is a common practice of Lux’s in The Cradle Place as it appears in “Three Boatloads of Mummies,” “Can’t Sleep the Clowns Will Eat Me,” “From the High Ground,” “The Ice Worm’s Life,” “The Chief Attendant of the Napkin,” “Burned Forests and Horses’ Bones,” “To Help the Monkey Cross the River,” “Can Tie Shoes but Won’t,” “Ten Years Hard Labor on a Guano Island,” and “Say You’re Breathing.” You can also tell by now that his titles are very unique, if not extremely odd.

I think that the defining characteristic of this poem, and many of the others, is its understated wit and dark humor. The poem is about a rotting corpse found near a stream, but Lux doesn’t discuss the person or his life. No, he discusses the usefulness of the insects that pick away at the corpse and ultimately states that the maggots are indeed helping us. Another dark but impersonal poem is “Hospitality and Revenge,”

Hospitality and Revenge

You invite your neighbor over

for a beer and a piece of pie.

He says words inappropriate

about your Xmas bric-a-brac.

You shoot him, three times, in the face.

While you complain to his first son

re high off-white-couch cleaning costs,

he shoots you in the face five times.

At your wake, your first son pumps eight

slugs behind his first son’s left ear.

Your wife invites your neighbor’s widow for tea.

Let’s see what exactly about the poem makes it so disturbing and cold. The tone of the poem is so detached because he never uses any words to describe the people dying or make any attempt to personalize the poem. The most we know about the neighbor is that he “says words inappropriate.” The use of slang words almost act as euphemisms such as when “your first son pump eight slugs.” These words devalue the victims and make the poem almost comical as that sentence seems straight out of a comic book caption. Also notice that the speaker writes in the second person saying “You invite,” “your Xmas,” “you complain,” etc. Regardless of the fact that the speaker isn’t necessarily addressing the reader, the nature of the second person itself will bring the reader’s own family into his/her mind making the poem most disturbing for him/her. However, the detached tone of the poem combined with the personal nature of “you” only augments the coldness of the poem.

The poem also makes a small observation on the nature of revenge, as the number of bullets each revenge-killing involves increases. “You” shoot “your neighbor” three times, his son shoots “you” five times, and “your” first son “pumps eight slugs” into the other son’s head. Many of the poems in A Cradle Place have disturbing subject matter yet the speakers handle it with no emotions and even hints of humor.

Tripp's comment on "Vietnam"

I was interested in the questions that Tripp raised as to whether she is a "woman who cannot understand hardly any english? is she playing dumb until her children are put at risk? is she just confused and has no idea what is going on around her and all she knows is that she wants her kids to be with her?" Let's look at the text and see if the evidence favors one of the possibilities.

Here’s the poem once again:

Vietnam

“Woman, what’s your name? “I don’t know.”

“How old are you? Where are you from?” “I don’t know.”

“How long have you been hiding?” “I don’t know.”

“Why did you bite my finger?” “I don’t know.”

“Don’t you know that we won’t hurt you?” “I don’t know.”

“Whose side are you on?” “I don’t know.”

“This is war, you’ve got to choose.” “I don’t know.”

“Does your village still exist?” “I don’t know.”

“Are those your children?” “Yes.”

a) A woman who can understand very little English:

This does not seem to be a likely scenario as she understands “are those your children,” which really isn’t that simple of a sentence. It’s difficult to believe that she would understand that and not “what’s your name.”

b) She is playing dumb until her children are put at risk.

This is certainly a possibility but if we examine it we must also discern why she decided to actually answer the last question. I’ll explain that in a little bit but I do think that the third possibility is the most plausible.

c) She is extremely confused with what is going on around her.

There is one word that leads me to believe that this woman may not care as much for her children as is evident on the first read. The soldier says “are those your children.” Judging by my classmates’ comments on my poems, the distinction between the demonstrative pronouns carries much weight with it. Frequently there are comments suggesting the use of “this/these” rather than “that/those” because the usage of the former places more importance on the noun at hand. I totally believe in that observation as well. I also believe, however, that we can’t pick and choose when “that” (or its plural form) reduces importance and when we can ignore the choice of “that” (as in this poem). If we hold to the conclusion that “that/those” reduces importance and immediacy then we must apply it to “are those your children.” “Those” inadvertently reduces the importance of the children but also tells us that the children are physically away from the mother. If this woman really is completely protective of her children then why are they not by her side in a time of war? Human nature and the nature of the English language can explain how she knew the answer to the last question. “Those” is considered a pronoun but for it to be intelligible it must be specified what “those” is referring to. Since the soldiers are asking simple questions, they did not previously mention the children and therefore their only option would be to physically point and/or look at the children as they ask the question. As you can see, the motioning actually goes beyond human nature and depends on English grammar. The textual evidence is telling us that the woman knows very simple English answers but is totally overwhelmed and confused by the war going on around her. She answers the last question because it is a simple yes or no question and not necessarily because her children are all-important. We can speculate on the setting they are in (an interrogation room, field, house, etc) or other things but ultimately we have to rely on the text to lead us in the right direction. Unfortunately we have little text to work with, but I think that all we really need is the word “those.”

Motion in poetry?

Motion

You’re crying here, but there they’re dancing,

there they’re dancing in your tear.

There they’re happy, making merry,

they don’t know a blessed thing.

Almost the glimmering of mirrors.

Almost candles flickering.

Nearly staircases and hallways.

Gestures, lace cuffs, so it seems.

Hydrogen, oxygen, those rascals.

Chlorine, sodium, a pair of rogues.

The fop nitrogen parading

up and down, around, about

beneath the vault, inside the dome.

Your crying’s music to their ears.

Yes, eine kleine Nachtmusik.

Who are you, lovely masquerader.

The perception of motion in writing is an interesting concept because a writer must elicit not just imagery in the reader’s mind, but dynamic imagery. This poem does not strive for elaborate images, however. Simple words like “dancing,” “glimmering,” “flickering,” “gestures,” “rogues,” and “parading” lend a perception of action and activity within the poem. Also, the elements hydrogen, oxygen, chlorine, and sodium are highly reactive in their elemental forms which will also add to the “motion” of the poem, if the reader is familiar with chemistry. In addition, notice how the poet says “almost the glimmering,” “almost candles flickering,” and “nearly staircases.” There is never any completion and only perpetual motion.

Despite the active diction, I believe there are elements of the poem that hinder the perception of motion and perhaps this relates to the occasion of the poem. Enjambment, which would create a hurried feel while reading the poem, occurs only in the 11^th and twelfth lines. The abundance of end-line punctuation seems counterintuitive for a poem utilizing active words as it stops the reader at the same time every line. There is no unpredictability or acceleration in this technique. Also, there are several multisyllabic words that don’t exactly roll off the tongue: “glimmering,” “hydrogen,” “oxygen,” “sodium,” “nitrogen,” “Nachtmusik, and “masquerader.” These words slow the reader down in his reading and complement the punctuation well.

It seems that the occasion of the poem is a person crying alone at a party while everyone else is having fun and in motion. The contrast between the state of the loner (alone, still) and that of the partygoers (dancing, active) directly relates to the presence of both active diction and end-line punctuation.

Vietnam

This next poem is really interesting and has a lot going on in it without actually having any figurative language or noticeable complexity to it.

Vietnam

“Woman, what’s your name? “I don’t know.”

“How old are you? Where are you from?” “I don’t know.”

“How long have you been hiding?” “I don’t know.”

“Why did you bite my finger?” “I don’t know.”

“Don’t you know that we won’t hurt you?” “I don’t know.”

“Whose side are you on?” “I don’t know.”

“This is war, you’ve got to choose.” “I don’t know.”

“Does your village still exist?” “I don’t know.”

“Are those your children?” “Yes.”

The entire poem consists of dialogue between what I believe to be a US soldier and a Vietnamese woman. Pretty much any work of art about Vietnam will be very emotionally charged and typically quite political. What’s impressive about this poem especially, however, is that the poet does not opt for the common route for war-themed works of art. This common route is the heavy use of vivid imagery to convey the horrors of war and basically frighten the reader/observer enough to make him realize the human toll of war. Wislawa Szymborska creates such a relatively simple poem that manages to be as powerful as any imagery-dependant poems/works of art in general. The repetition of “I don’t know” after 8/9 lines reinforces the sense of chaos and confusion during war. The fact that she only answers “Yes” when asked about her children tells us how utterly lost this woman is. She is displaced from her home, doesn’t know if her village exists anymore, has no idea what side she is on, and bit a soldier out of fright. Her life seems to be in great disorder. I just wanted to post this poem because I love how Szymborska can convey so much in 9 lines of simple dialogue.

Poems New and Collected p67-142 by Wislawa Szymborska

“The Joy of Writing”

Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?

For a drink of written water from a spring

whose surface will Xerox her soft muzzle?

Why does she lift her head; does she hear something?

Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth.

she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips.

Silence—this word also rustles across the page

and parts the boughs

that have sprouted from the word “woods.”

Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page,

are letters up to no good,

clutches of clauses so subordinate

they’ll never let her get away.

Each drop of ink contains a fair supply

of hunters. equipped with squinting eyes behind their sights.

prepared to swarm the sloping pen at any moment,

surround the doe, and slowly aim their guns.

They forget that what’s here isn’t life.

Other laws, black on white, obtain

The twinkling of an eye will take as long as I say,

and will, if I wish, divide into tiny eternities,

full of bullets stopped in mid-flight.

Not a thing will ever happen unless I say so.

Without my blessing, not a leaf will fall,

not a blade of grass will bend beneath that little hoof’s full stop.

Is there then a world

where I rule absolutely on fate?

A time I bind with chains of signs?

An existence become endless at my bidding?

The joy of writing.

The power of preserving.

Revenge of a mortal hand.

I thought this poem is such a great way to begin a volume of poetry. A poem about the joy of writing and the life it can bring about. The most important element of the poem is the personification of inanimate objects, especially letters and words. A word “rustles across the page,” bullets stop in mid-flight, and boughs sprout from the word “woods.” This is an illustration of the power of writing to inspire and bring life. It’s amazing how she can create this vivid imagery of such a fanciful subject: letters “rustling” letters and hunters of ink aiming at a pen. We mention concrete imagery often in class and previous to reading this poem I always assumed that meant the imagery had to be of something realistic. I can now see how one can create lively imagery of such a fantastic event.

Also notice how three of the first four lines end in question marks and three of the last six lines end in question marks, yet in between them there are none. The first three ask legitimate questions that are answered in the ensuing plot but the last three are really rhetorical questions that raise very important issues to a writer. I think she is showing how ultimately the joy of writing leads to powerful questions about the nature of writing itself. She seems to conclude that the joy of writing is in the power that the author/poet holds in creating his or her fictional worlds. She says “Without my blessing, not a leaf will fall,” “Not a thing will ever happen unless I say so,” and “a blade of grass will bend beneath that little hoof’s full stop.” That’s a power trip if I’ve ever seen one!

Personification and metaphor are the dominant elements of this poem. The word in the beginning is compared to a doe prancing across a page. Not only is it an inanimate object being given animate qualities (personification), it is also being compared to something very unlike itself (metaphor).

Lauren's post

"The thing that really struck me about this poem was the verb usage. It is narrative poem--telling a story--but still uses strong action verbs that help create a ritualistic, rhythmic feel. Often, in a narrative poem, the process of telling the story involves too many "prose" words (conjunctions, adverbs, unexciting verbs, and the like) and not enough words charged with significant meaning. In this poem, the author manages to tell the story AND use some of the best assortment of verbs that I've seen:

set ablaze
swing
leading
surround
flicker
ignites
click
pump
flail
jumps
flirts
rocking
testify
snuffs
flashing
surrender

The poem could have conveyed the same story with uninteresting verbs, but the passion behind the poem would have been lost completely--as would have its effect on the reader."

Great observation, Lauren. I definitely agree that some narrative poems tend to have prose-like diction, and this is probably why many poets opt for the prose poem route. Good narrative poems impress me so much because the poet has to relay so much information in a very specific order and manner without delving into prose. In other types of poems the poet can reveal important elements of the poem in any order he/she would like but with a narrative poem it just can't work like that. They have some flexibility in how he orders it chronologically, but it still has to be discernible for the reader. You mentioned the ritualistic feel of the poem and I totally agree and think that that feel is what makes this poem. Great insight Lauren.

Response to Alex V.G.'s comment

"I dig what you are saying about the imperative, about the tonal impact it has on a poem, etc., but I wonder about your linking of the imperative and bitterness... I definately get a feeling of bitterness from some of the poem, primarily when she says ",girl" in the way she does, coupled, yes, with the imperative, but I'm not sure its the imperative that gives the poem that bitterness as much as the placement of girl (as, I believe, it refers to the poet) after a comma after an imperative, like a spit or a curse. "Go do this, stupid." Thoughts? Actually it is pretty late, to be honest. You don't have to answer if you are already asleep."

Tonal things can be difficult to guage because so much of it hinges on how an individual reacts to certain words, phrases, tenses, etc. These reactions can vary from person to person greatly in some instances. The inclusion of ",girl" in the poem gives me a sense of a desperate woman trying so hard to push herself in a new direction. But all of these commands to herself seem to be tinged with bitterness. I'll definitely agree though that just the word "girl" clarifies so much about the poem but also opens many doors. One door being how to interpret the placement and usage of the word. It's such a minute yet important detail that it can be read into several ways.

damn

Ah damnit, blogger isn't cooperating and basically nullified 5 solid minutes of putting in all the damn spaces in"Dust." Take my word for it, the words were completely scattered across the page with several spaces in between the words. The jist is that there was a shitload of open space.


In addition, highlight the whole poem. Blogger also decided to make the font of the words in the box white so that you can't see them.

"Dust"

I’m not quite sure if this qualifies as concrete poetry because it’s not as radical visually as some of the ones in our poetry book, but it’s a cool poem nonetheless.

Dust

Off the lamp shade

so we can see

each other

without/groping,

without

the mystery,

the fantasy,

of who we wish we were;

dust

off the piano so

we can dance

weightless

like grace

notes

under Art Tatum’s

fingers, dust

off the television so we can settle on the sofa till our bodies feel like the letter B,

till our minds

misplace

regrets,

till our tongues become extinct.

Lift the dust

off your eyes,

girl;

lift the velvet haze

off your dreams wipe

the surface

clean; t e a r

the rag off your head, and

peer

into your reflection

before

there’s nothing left to see.

What’s interesting about analyzing this poem is that since the poem is so oddly placed on the page, the stuff that’s normal is what jumps out at me. I’ll begin with taking a look at the things that are normall spaced and printed first.

The defining element of this poem is space. There is so much empty space on the page with the massive indentations, one word lines, spaces between letters, and triple spaces between almost all of the words. This allows Jordan to place emphasis on certain words by positioning them wherever the hell he wants. An example of this is that “regrets” is placed on its own line and practically right next to the binding of the book. The feeling that this poem conveys is one of distance and longing, and the isolation of “regrets” reinforces that. What I can’t discern though is to whom this poem is talking. I thought Macnolia was talking to her husband the whole time until she said “Lift the dust/off your eyes,/ girl.” This made me think that she might be speaking to herself, hoping for motivation and/or comfort. She may be so detached from her husband, due to his infidelity, that she feels she must comfort and ease the pain for herself. This would explain the spaciousness of the poem, the one word lines, and the complete separation of “off the television…B” from the rest of the poem.

Another interesting thing is the extensive use of the imperative, such as “dust off…”three times, “lift the dust,” “lift the velvet,” “wipe the surface,” “tear the rag,” “and “peer into.” This conveys a sense of bitterness mixed in with the distanced feeling I discussed before. It’s almost like Macnolia is pushing herself so hard to change that she is demanding things of herself.

There’s also a large change in the pattern of the sentences after the boxed portion. Before it, Macnolia only uses the “Dust off…” command and always gives a reason for this, “Dust off the lamp shad so we can see each other,” “dust off the piano so we can dance,” “dust off the television so we can settle on the sofa.” They all give justifications for her demands to dust these objects off. After the box, however, the commands change and she ceases to give reasons for these demands. “Lift the dust off your eyes,” “lift the velvet haze off your dreams,” “wipe the surface clean,” “tear the rag off your head,” and “peer into your reflection.” This change over such a dramatically short amount of time possibly shows how Macnolia’s determination may be increasing. Initially, she has to give herself weak reasons to dust these things off, reasons to change herself. Soon after though she has the willpower to demand these things of herself with no strings attached.

Craft elements

As you could probably tell, I've been experimenting with interpreting a poem's meaning, sometimes involving symbolism. I haven't abandoned craft elements, however, and will devote this week to them.

Rope

Rope
Alberta Cox

As if two girls were starting a fire
On all sides of my daughter,
She is set ablaze: the girls swing
Two clotheslines between them
As if they were goddesses
Holding two country roads
Leading to each other; neighbors
Surround her syncopated dance
As her seizure of heat begins
To flicker on the moonlit sidewalk—
Now, the ropes are white hot—
Her hair ignites in the upswing; her barrettes,
Like petrified butterflies, click on the off beat;
Her knees pump like she's walking on red coals;
Her arms flail as if she's calling the rain
To put her out; she jumps, she flirts
With the flame: she jumps backwards
And then turns forward,
Rocking in and out of the light,
Her hands testify around her head
Or pose on yet-to-be hips, till
Her fire snuffs out as a wind blows cold,
A car with flashing lights
Slows past, and the braids of our summer night
Surrender to gravity.

In contrast to Yeat’s poetry, this poem THRIVES on simile and metaphor. The heat is described as a seizure, the barrettes compared to butterflies, and so on. The central conceit (I think that’s what it would be called) is set forth in the first two lines, “As if two girls were starting a fire/On all sides of my daughter…” The poem clearly goes on to describe the scene as if MacNolia really is on fire. By the middle of it, the poem takes on the quality of an religious and ritualistic dance using language like “Her arms flail as if she's calling the rain,” “jumps backwards,” “rocking.” Jordan even directly relates the girl’s actions as a “syncopated dance.” Also notice the use of some musical language, “syncopated” and “off beat.” Jordan says “Her hands testify around her head” which elicits an image of a devoutly religious person “testifying” her sins to God in a very animated fashion, possibly in anguish. The poem ends with the line “surrender to gravity.” The act of “surrendering” lends itself to the idea of wholly submitting oneself to God in devotion and service.
This poem is representative of oppression and most importantly, the reaction to oppression. The book’s central conflict is racism as MacNolia is eliminated from the competition because the judges gave her a word that was not on the pre-determined list of words, probably because they would not stand to see a black girl win a competition of such magnitude. The perpetrators of the arson, the two girls, are symbolic of the bigots that stand to deny African-Americans of their civil rights. They are compared to “goddesses,” and I do not think this comparison is in looks but in supposed “superiority.” The language makes it seem like they are overwhelming MacNolia, “two girls were starting a fire/On all sides of my daughter,” and the girls are portrayed as if they are finding joy in this vicious act, “the girls swing two clotheslines between them/As if they were goddesses.” MacNolia’s religious-tinged dance is the response to the discrimination set forth by the bigots. My read is that the strong religious nature of the fire-induced dance represents what many people do, or possibly should do (depending on if Jordan is trying to send a message) in response to prejudices: turn to God. “Testify,” “Surrender.” Hmm, what’s most powerful is how the poem ends, MacNolia is saved by a non-descript “wind” accompanied by a car with only “flashing lights.” I think that Jordan is saying that turning to God in response to racial hardships will ultimately lead to some amount of easing. Why do I think the wind/car represent God/fruits of religious faith? It just seems odd that, with everything else in the poem being described in detail with multiple similes and metaphors, this car is only described as having “flashing lights” and the wind is only said to be “cold.” The lack of elaboration harkens to the intangible, mystical nature of God. It makes sense that the wind and car are fairly non-descript because God is not a physical being, He theoretically has no physical characteristics.

M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A by A. Van Jordan

M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A is the first volume of poetry I’ve encountered that is a fully developed, definite narrative (albeit not in a standard narrative form). Form is of enormous importance in this book, both on the macroscopic level (the book as a whole) and the more narrow level (each individual poem).

MA-C-N-O-L-I-A contains some formal elements that make sense given the subject matter and some that are seemingly counterintuitive. For instance, the work is divided into four sections that punctuate the volume quantitatively like the way a speller dissects a word letter by letter. It also contains poems that are quite formal with the sestina being a prime example. The methodical, highly structured form models the clinical nature of a spelling bee (and in case you’re not familiar with the spelling bee format, they have A LOT of rules). An important formal element on the macro scale is the nonlinear narrative. The story is told out of chronological order with the speakers changing several times. This reveals to us the disorder in MacNolia’s state of being and emotional condition after she was cheated out of the Spelling Bee. That a girl of such intelligence, work ethic, and high ambitions can end up as a “damn good maid” is sad and shows us the enormous emotional impact her loss had. The narrative’s structural disarray closely resembles the drastic turn that MacNolia’s life had.

Some counter-intuitive elements are the number of statements that, from a strictly logical standpoint, don’t make sense. Here’s one that pretty much sums it up: “And when the silence gets too loud,” which is from “When MacNolia Greases My Hair.” Another: “in the dark's light,” is from “Wedding Night.” These only add to the diversity of poetry in this work though. MA-C-N-O-L-I-A is characterized by its sheer unpredictability and the nonlinear narrative, four sections, contradictions, and variety of poetic forms only augment that unpredictability.

sonatina in green

I think sonatina in green is saying something totally different about chance than the others.

Sonatina in Green


One spits on the sublime.
One lies in bed alone, reading
Yesterday's newspaper. One
Has composed a beginning, say,
A phrase or two. No more!
There has been traffic enough
In the boudoir of the muse.

And still they come, demanding entrance,
Noisy, and with ecstatic cries
Catching the perfume, forcing their way—
For them, what music? Only,
Distantly, through some door ajar,
Echoes, broken strains; and the garland
Crushed at the threshold.

And we,
We few with the old instruments,
Obstinate, sounding the one string—
For us, what music? Only, at times,
The sunlight of late afternoon
That plays in the corner of a room,
Playing upon worn keys. At times,
Smells of decaying greenery, faint bouquets—
More than enough.

And our cries
Diminish behind us:
Cover
The bird cages! No more
Bargain days in the flower stalls!
There has been traffic enough
In the boudoir of the muse,
More than enough traffic. Or say
That one composed, in the end,
Another beginning, in spite of all this,
Sublime. Enough!

Closed are the grand boulevards,
And closed those mouths that made the lesser songs,
And the curtains drawn in the boudoir.


for my students

This poem is all about inspiration and, in my opinion, the writing process.

The key phrase is “There has been traffic enough/ In the boudoir of the muse.” A muse is typically thought of as a woman (goddess) who is a source of inspiration to poets, musicians, artists, etc. A Boudoir is a woman’s dressing room/bedroom-type-thing by the way. The “boudoir of the muse” line is important enough that Justice repeats the line in the second to last stanza.

He seems to describe three writers in the first stanza: one who looks to the past for inspiration (yesterday’s newspaper), another who cannot get past “a phrase or two,” and a third who just straight-up rejects inspiration (weird). They can’t find inspiration because there “has been traffic enough in the boudoir of the muse.”

Next he describes how they try to force the inspiration, “demanding entrance” and “forcing their way.” After considering the subject material, story, and the “chance method,” I think that Justice is really saying something about the writing process. A lesson for his students if you will.

He is telling us that it’s alright to stumble upon a great line through trial and error or by accident, that our poems need not come from steady contemplation and a search for inspiration. How our creative minds work is a somewhat random process. We may have a certain syntax and diction for a line in mind, but it can morph into something we totally did not imagine beforehand. I know that is how my blog analyses come to be. I generally begin typing my close-read with a basic observation in mind, and just by typing it out I start to make new connections on the fly, things I didn’t even think of while just staring at the poem. I think that’s where the chance concept comes about. Ideas that one did not preconceive can spring about within the writing process itself. You just cannot force these ideas out like our friends in the poem “forced their way.”

Without knowledge of the chance method that he used in creating this poem, it may just seem like a poem about inspiration in general. But by telling us that he used this random process, he can teach us a more specific lesson if we correctly tie in the chance method to the subject matter.

This poem is really just a terrific lecture in poetic disguise.

Departures

Clock

These quiet hands, their gestures,

These circles drawn upon air.

And the whiteness of the face

That attends the unspoken.

This listening of the deaf.

Justice’s word choices in “Clock” all seem to reinforce this feeling of intangibility with regards to the clock; it is a sense of absence or vacancy. “Quiet,” “upon air,” “whiteness,” “unspoken,” “the deaf.” Contrast this with the nature of a clock itself. It is a strictly quantitative and mechanical device to measure time, hardly of the mystical nature the poem assigns to it.

Now notice the demonstrative pronouns Justice uses: “These,” “These,” and “This.” Three for three with the proximals. His use of the proximal demonstrative pronouns lends weight to the immediacy and significance of the clock. It’s not “those circles” or “those quiet hands,” he specifically uses “these” to emphasize the importance and nearness of the clock. Our lives completely revolve around the measurement of time (deadlines, appointments, schedules, etc) and using the proximals acknowledges the significance of the clock.

So, he is both emphasizing the nebulous aspect of “this” clock and the enormous significance of it. Although I know he is trying to tell us something, I’m having trouble pinning down a solid interpretation, especially one involving the chance method he said he used in writing this poem. I think the central focus of it is the conflict between the orderliness of the clock and his “chance method.”

I can’t argue that he is saying time is an enormous force looming in the background because I’m pretty sure that people are almost always aware of time in their hectic schedules. Time’s influence is not transparent, it’s definitely there and very noticeable. I really don’t have a great explanation for these elements :(

More on the preceeding title. If you haven't read the previous two posts, it's imperative that you do so

Now let's look at another of Justice's chance experiments, "The Assassination."

"The Assassination"

It begins again, the nocturnal pulse.

It courses through the cables laid for it.

It mounts to the chandeliers and beats there, hotly.

We are too close. Too late, we would move back.

We are involved with the surge.

Now it bursts. Now it has been announced.

Now it is being soaked up by newspapers.

Now it is running through the streets.

The crowd has it. The woman selling carnations

And the man in the straw hat stand with it in their shoes.

Here is the red marquee it sheltered under,

Here is the ballroom, here

The sadly various orchestra led

By a single gesture. My arms open.

It enters. Look, we are dancing.

June 5, 1968

For context, June 5, 1968 was the day that RFK was shot. I know this because my birthday is the day after, June 6^th.

Although we know that this is about an assassination, the most important part of the poem is that it never says what “it” is. Hell, it doesn’t even really come close to even implying what “it” is. This “it” is portrayed as some kind of animal, invisibly lurking.

“the nocturnal pulse./It courses through the cables laid for it./It mounts. “It bursts,” “it is running,” “it sheltered under,” “it enters.”

The chance methods involved in writing this poem tie into the vagueness of Justice’s use of “it.” Chance, being this intangible, mathematical force that inconspicuously governs so many aspects of our lives, ties nicely into the unnamed “it.”

The question that I will leave with, and will come back to in subsequent posts (because of this I’ll respectfully ask that you don’t comment on this post with your theories), is why Justice would choose to use his now famous “chance method” for the poem “Clock.” Clocks are lauded for their extraordinary regularity and order, hardly something governed by chance. Here it is:

Clock

These quiet hands, their gestures,

These circles drawn upon air.

And the whiteness of the face

That attends the unspoken.

This listening of the deaf.

Proof of the significance of "chance methods" through the analysis of selected poems and formal elements.

In case you forgot, the following poem was listed by Justice as being one of his “chance methods” experiments.

“The Success”

He asked for directions, but the street

Was swaying before him drunkenly.

The buildings leaned together. There was some

Conspiracy of drawn curtains against him.

And all around him he could sense the beauty

Of unnseen arms, of eyes that slid off elsewhere.

Someone was living his life there, someone

Was turning back sheets meant to receive his body.

This was the address if not the destination.

The moonlight die along his wrist. His hand

Slipped off through the darkness on its stubborn mission,

Roving the row of mailboxes for the name it dreamed.

He entered. The doorman vanished with a nod.

The elevator ascended smoothly to his desire.

The light in the hall, the door against his cheek…

He had arrived. He recognized the laughter.

Did you miss it? Here’s the crucial line: “…he could sense the beauty/of unseen arms, of eyes that slid off elsewhere./Someone was living his life there…”

Someone was living his life there, huh? Gee I wonder who that could be…oh wait, CHANCE! This concept of an unknown force pervades the poem, “There was some/Conspiracy of drawn curtains against him.” “Slipped off along the darkness,” “Doorman vanished.” The central idea of this poem is chance governing our lives but there’s one more important question. Where is The Success?

The last line: “He had arrived. He recognized [italics are my own] the laughter.” After four stanzas of “unseen arms,” conspiracies, and being ruled by chance, he finally recognizes something. That sole feeling of familiarity in his life of obscurity is The Success.

"Departures" by Donald Justice

I would say that the strongest recurring element in the poems of Departures is that of insignificance and worthlessness. The speakers’ tones are consistently detached, exasperated, and sometimes quite cynical. “Prescenes,” the last poem, provides a great look at the tone that many of the speakers take.

Everyone, everyone went away today.

They left without a word, and I think

I did not hear a single goodbye today.

And all that I saw was someone’s hand, I think,

Thrown up out there like the hand of someone drowning,

But far away, too far to be sure what it was or meant.

No, but I saw how everything had changed

Later, just as the light had; and night

I saw that from dream to dream everything changed.

And those who might have come to me in the night,

The ones who did come back but without a word,

All those I remembered passed through my hands like clouds—

Clouds out of the south, familiar clouds—

But I could not hold onto them, they were drifing away,

Everything going away in the night again and again.

Diction like “drowning,” “far away,” “everything changed,” “passed through,” “drifting away,” “going away” creates a helpless tone, as if the speaker is being left behind by both people and changing objects that were once familiar (dreams, clouds, “everything”). The fact that he is being left behind appropriately forms a feeling of worthlessness for the speaker as if he is a piece of trash being tossed aside.

One thing that greatly intrigued me was the fact that, in his notes at the end of the book, Justice says,

"The Confession, The Success, The Assassination, 'Clock' (from 'Things'), and the sonatinas come, in part, from chance methods."

I think the fact that he used “chance methods” in some of his poems can tell us a great deal about the poem and his views on poetry as a whole. My guess as to what “chance methods” are is that he probably randomly selected certain words.

Going by what he said, 6/29 poems (or 21%) used some amount of randomness in their writing. This is a relatively large proportion and it deserves much attention.

By using chance, I think that Justice is tying the idea of chance itself into our own lives and reinforcing the depressed tones in Departures. It’s a depressing thought that there may be things that are out of our control and are governed by chance. One could argue that a person is cynical if he truly believes that we don’t really have control over our lives, that they are guided mostly by the forces of probability. Huh, this is an interesting proposition…let’s look for solid proof that Justice intends for this.

The Wheel

"The Wheel"

Through winter-time we call on spring,
And through the spring on summer call,
And when abounding hedges ring
Declare that winter's best of all;
And after that there's nothing good
Because the spring-time has not come--
Nor know that what disturbs our blood
Is but its longing for the tomb.

What I liked about “The Wheel” is its contrast between the image of a wheel and life itself. Most people think of life as a linear progression from birth to death while Yeats seems to imply that it is more of a circular progression. He begins the poem with winter then moves through spring and summer until we “Declare that winter’s best of all” but “spring-time has not come.” I think what reveals that this second winter is really the end of life is when he says “Nor know that what disturbs our blood/Is but its longing for the tomb.”

It is also interesting that the last four lines are really just slant rhymes. “Good” with “blood” and “come” with “tomb.” These slant rhymes tie into the effects of age itself: when young we are vibrant and full of life but as we age humans deteriorate in many aspects. The first four lines are perfect rhymes but the last four are not, this tells us much about aging. I feel that the semicolon at the end of the fourth line is enormously important as well. It denotes a separation between the first four lines (youth) and the last four (old age) BUT does not completely separate them as a period would. The semicolon keeps a continuity of time but separates the two sections by characteristics. A period would separate them by characteristics but would also stop time.

in response to professor white's comment

Professor White asked: "how do you think that avoiding figurative language serves Yeats? Does it make his adjectival obsession necessary, more noticeable, or weaker? Are the two even related?"

I think that avoiding metaphors and similes brings much more attention to the noun at hand. This is because with figurative language, the reader's attention is split between the noun and the thing that it is being compared to. By omitting a metaphor, however, he needs to use other ways to describe his nouns and create rich imagery. He makes up for the missing figurative language with his “adjectival obsession.” I’ll copy the quotes I used in my previous post:

“sultry mud”

“wholesome sun has ripened”

“mummy wheat”

“mad abstract dark”

“sleep a long Saturnian sleep”

“unwearied eyes”

I really don’t think there’s much need for metaphors or similes with adjectives like those.

In response to the third question, adjectives and metaphors are connected only because they are both techniques to describe something. But the similarities end there. Adjectives are very direct way to describe a noun while with metaphors, you have to imagine the object that the noun is being compared to before you can imagine the noun itself. It’s an abstract and indirect way to create imagery and obviously many poets such as Bishop use it to great effect. I don’t, however, think that it is a “higher” path to imagery than adjectives because just as with all poetic techniques, there is a time and place for it to be used.

Look at Leda and the Swan. The whole idea of the poem is to make it have a primal and visceral feeling. I don’t think that that could be accomplished by using indirect methods of description such as metaphors. I’ll repost the poem for reference:

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still

Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed

By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill.

He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push

The feathered glory from her loosening things?

And how can body, laid in that white rush

But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there

The broken wall, the burning roof and tower

And Agamemnon dead.

Being so caught up,

So mastered by the brute blood of the air,

Did she put on his knowledge with his power

Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

This is a brutal scene and the feeling of the poem would not be best served by Yeats using metaphors. Hell, even the adjectives are pretty straightforward. But what’s brilliant about this is that Yeats takes a reductionist approach to his diction. Contrast the language of “sudden blow” to “sultry mud” (sultry mud being a phrase he uses in a previous poem). The word sultry is a pretty unique word to describe mud but “sudden” is a pretty standard word to describe a blow. This kind of goes back to our discussion about Kenneth’s poem, in which we decided that he used simple lines and diction to convey the instinctual and primitive nature of “desire” itself. Yeats uses his straightforward adjectives for the same purpose. The primal nature of a rape would not be conveyed well by using indirect methods of description like metaphors.

more on the last post

Now I'm not going to delve into psychology here, but considering that most of the book is about aging and sex is also a recurring topic, I wonder why Yeats found sex important to include. Perhaps he saw it as a way to return back to some amount of youthfulness? But then what is ironic is that in "Sailing to Byzantium," the speaker complains that people "caught in that sensual music all neglect monuments of unaging intellect." He seems to look down on "that sensual music" and would rather a return to reason and intellect.

Later, the speaker pleads with the gods to "consume my heart away; sick with desire"

This is one conflicted speaker! He criticizes those indulging in pleasures of the flesh and only two stanzas later says that his own heart is lustful and "sick with desire." This shows the insecurities of the speaker, who is obviously an old man. He feels that he has no place or purpose on the Earth anymore, no reason for living, yet must live with the conflicts between his intellectual mind and still-lustful heart.

sensuality in "the tower"

Another thing I noticed after reading "The Tower" is that sensuality is a recurring topic throughout the work. In "The Mermaid" he writes,

A mermaid found a swimming lad,

Picked him for her own,

Pressed her body to his body,

Laughed; and plunging down

Forgot in cruel happiness

That even lovers drown.

Yeats also wrote a poem called “Leda and the Swan,” which is based on the Greek myth in which Zeus, in the form of a swan, has sex with Leda.

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still

Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed

By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill.

He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push

The feathered glory from her loosening things?

And how can body, laid in that white rush

But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there

The broken wall, the burning roof and tower

And Agamemnon dead.

Being so caught up,

So mastered by the brute blood of the air,

Did she put on his knowledge with his power

Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

That’s a pretty messed up image.

Through his word-choice, Yeats shows some amount of reverence for the bird. He uses words like “great,” “feathered glory,” “mastered,” “his knowledge,” and “power” in describing the bird. This may tie in to the fact that the bird is actually Zeus and Yeats is treating it as such. Yeats depicts the scene as what seems to be a rape, although I do not know the details of the actual legend and it could perhaps have been consensual, which would be even more messed up. But nevertheless, Yeats molds this legend to be a rape yet also shows respect for the bird. He uses the words “staggering,” “helpless,” “terrified,” “vague,” “shudder,” “broken,” “caught,” “mastered,” “power,” and “indifferent” to set the scene for the reader. These words point to the girl’s helplessness and the bird’s control.

trope, or lack thereof

Trope

“transparent like the wind…”

Yeats does not use trope extensively at all, which is a stark contrast to Bishop's work in which I could practically turn to a random page and find a trope! I was very hard-pressed to find even simple similes let alone full metaphors. What “The Tower” lacks in metaphors (which is actually a nice change of pace), it makes up for in rich language full of interesting adjectives and adverbs. “On a Picture of a Black Centaur by Edmond Dulac.” And no, the poem was not written by Edmond Dulac, he was a book illustrator.

It uses phrases such as “dark margin of the wood,”

“sultry mud”

“wholesome sun has ripened”

“mummy wheat”

“mad abstract dark”

“sleep a long Saturnian sleep”

“unwearied eyes”

Daaamn!

Personification is also used very often in this work. All of “Owen Ahern and his Dancers” is about a heart that is personified to be a character in and of itself.

A strange thing surely that my heart when love had come

unsought

Upon the Norman upland or in that poplar shade,

Should find no burden but itself and yet should be worn out.

It could not bear that burden and therefore it went mad.

The south wind brought I longing, and the east wind despair,

The west wind made it pitiful, and the north wind afraid.

It feared to give its love a hurt with all the tempest there;

It feared the hurt that she could give and therefore it went

mad.

I can exchange opinion with any neighboring mind,

Io have as healthy flesh and blood as any rhymer’s had,

But oh my Heart could bear no more when the upland

caught the wind;

I ran, I ran, from my love’s side because my Heart went mad.

II

The Heart behind its rib laughed out, ‘You have called me

mad,’ it said.

‘Because I made you turn away and run from that young

child;

How could she mate with fifty years that was so wildly bred?

Let the cage bird and the cage bird mate and the wild bird

mate in the wild.’

‘You but imagine lies all day, O murderer,’ I replied.

‘And all those lies have but one end poor wretches to betray;

I did not find in any cage the woman at my side.

O but her heart would break to learn my thoughts are far

away.’

‘Speak all your mind,’ my Heart sang out, ‘speak all

your mind; who cares,

Now that your tongue cannot persuade the child till she

mistake

Her childish gratitude for love and match your fifty years.

O let her choose a young man now and all for his wild sake.’

The personification is pretty evident, illustrated by the heart’s being able to speak. What I was really intrigued by though were the words Yeats chose to isolate in their own lines. The words are “unsought,” “mad,” “caught the wind,” “mad,” “child,” “away,” “mistake.” These words are clearly negative in nature, greatly adding to the other words used through the poem: “burden,” “despair,” “pitiful,” “afraid,” “tempest.” These are appropriate I suppose, considering the disturbing subject matter: a man “with fifty years” in love with “that young child.”

What I love about Yeats’s writing is how detailed he can get without using metaphors or similes. Reading his work has taught me that great poetry need not include metaphors, something I mostly thought was a necessity of poetic writing. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but it is another option. As seen below.

The true faith discovered was

When painted panel, statuary,

Glass-mosaic, window-glass,

Straightened all that went awry

When some peasant gospeller

Imagined Him upon the floor

Of a working-carpenter.

Miracle had its playtime where

In damask clothed and on a seat,

Chryselephantine, cedar boarded,

His majestic Mother sat

Stitching at a purple hoarded,

That He might be nobly breeched,

In starry towers of Babylon

Noah’s freshet never reached.

King Abundance got Him on

Innocence; and Wisdom He.

That cognomen sounded best

Considering what wile infancy

Drove horror from His Mother’s breast.

Awesome

"The Tower" by W.B. Yeats

Much of this book is damn hard to understand, but I’m going to give it my best shot.

This volume as a whole deals with aging, the prospect of an afterlife, and nostalgia for younger days. It is clear that aging weighed heavily on Yeats’s mind. Let’s see what the poems reveal about his thoughts on aging.

Sailing to Byzantium

I

That is no country for old men. The young

In on another’s arms, birds in the trees,

Those dying generations—at their song,

The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

Fish flesh or fowl, commend all summer long

Whatever is begotten born and dies.

Caught in that sensual music all neglect

Monuments of unaging intellect.

II

An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

For every tatter in its mortal dress,

Nor is there singing school but studying

Monuments of its own magnificence;

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come

To the holy city of Byzantium.

III

O sages standing in God’s holy fire

As in the gold mosaic of a wall,

Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,

And be the singing masters of my soul.

Consume my heart away; sick with desire

And fastened to a dying animal

It knows not what it is; and gather me

Into the artifice of eternity

IV

Once out of nature I shall never take

My bodily form from any natural thing,

But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

Of hammered gold and gold enamelling

To keep a drowsy emperor awake;

Or set upon a golden bough to sing

To lords and ladies of Byzantium

Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

1927

I wrote out the whole poem because I think it is very important to see the poem’s form, especially the Roman numerals. The stanzas are separated by roman numerals, with each stanza containing eight lines in an abababcc rhyme scheme. Considering many of the other poems in the book are less strict with their forms, I paid special attention to this since its form likely ties into his obsession with age.

The roman numerals are especially important as they define the stanzas, which all end in periods, very clearly. This models our measure of age in which time is delineated in specific units: seconds, minutes, hours, days, years. Also, Yeats could have separated the stanzas easily using other characters such as solid lines, dots, etc. Instead, he chose to use Roman numerals, characters associated with the Ancients that function to count things out, just as we count out time with our arbitrary units. It is through the Roman numerals that he both illustrates the progression of time and his own feelings of old age.

Another thing to note is the strict attention to “rules” (rhyme scheme, 8 line stanzas, etc). Elder generations are often characterized as more disciplined, regimented, and sensible than the youth generation. The consistency within the form lends itself well to representing the assumed (and possibly stereotyped) characteristics of Yeats’s age group.

For context: 1927 was amidst the “flapper” trend in young women, with “The young in one another’s arms…” probably being a reference. If you are not familiar with the infamous flappers, they were young women who looked to break the rules of decency in 1920’s society and set their own trends. This included wearing makeup, dressing more provocatively, and drinking alcohol openly, something unheard of during the Prohibition Era.

After describing his current world, and the condition of the elderly in it, Yeats moves on to the supernatural: using words like “holy,” “soul,” and “eternity” multiple times. He pleads with the sages to lift him away from this place and meld his soul “Into the artifice of eternity.” Not only is the speaker dismayed with his age, but he is anxious to leave the world that has cast him aside.