The Poetics of the Physical World

The

Poetics

of

the

Physical

World

Galway

Kinnell

At the end

of A

Season

in

Hell,

where

Rimbaud

reaches

autumn,

where

his boat

turns

toward

the

port

of

misery,

where

he surrenders

his

supernatural

claims and

knows

he has

only

rough

reality

to

embrace,

he

says,

"It

is

necessary

to

be abso

lutely

modern."

This

is

a

little different from

Ezra

Pound's

phrase,

"Make

it

new,"

which

suggests

that

a

poem

is

a

technical

act,

a

thing

controllable

by

the will.

I

have

come

to

distrust

discussions of

poetry

which

are

technical.

Yet

to

approach

what

it

might

mean

to

be

"absolutely

modern"

I

need

to

touch

on

what

appears

to

be

a

technical

matter:

the

uses

of

form

in

English

poetry?rhyme,

meter,

and

stanza.

In

their

earliest

uses

in

English,

rhyme

and

meter

perhaps

imitated

a

supernatural

harmony:

the

regular

beat,

the foreknown

ringing

of the

rhymes,

perhaps

echoed

a

celestial

music.

In

the

eighteenth

century,

when

English

poetry

became

more

rational

and

worldly,

the outward forms

might

have

reproduced

a

natural

order,

so

that form

became

an

unconscious

test

of

objective

truth: for

instance,

if

a

statement

couldn't

be

rhymed,

it

couldn't

be

true.

For

the

Roman

tics

and

the

Victorians,

for

whom

that

supernatural

harmony

and that

natural

order had

crumbled,

rhyme

and

meter

took

on

a

far

more

energetic

function,

which

was

to

call

back,

in

poetry,

the

grace

disappearing

from

everything

else.

The

poem

was

erected

against

chaos. The

more

disorderly reality

appeared,

the

smoother

the

iambs

became,

the

more

elegant

the

rhymes.

It

was

thought

a

beautiful

achievement,

a

kind

of

rescue,

to

reduce the

rhythms

of human

speech

to

the

iambic foot.

In

this

way

poetry,

along

with

so

many

other

human

endea

vors,

undertook

the

conquest

of

nature.

No nineteenth

century poem

written

in

fixed

form,

unless

perhaps

something

by

Clare

or

Hopkins

or

Melville,

fails

to

give

off

the

aroma

of

this

essentially

nostalgic

act.

For modern

poets?for

everyone

after

Yeats?rhyme

and

meter,

having

lost their

sacred and

natural

basis,

amount to

little

more

than

mechanical aids

for

writing.

Contrary

to

common

opinion,

it

is

easier

to

write

in

rhyme

and

meter

than

to

write

without them.

At the

very

least,

the

exigencies

of

these forms

change

the

nature

of

the

difficulty,

making

it

more

verbal than

psychic.

When

using

rhyme

and

meter

one

has

to

be concerned with how

to

say

something, perhaps

anything,

which

fulfills the formal

requirements.

It

is

hard

to

let the

poem

flow

from oneself

or

move

into

the

open

that

way.

If

you

were

walking

through

the

snow,

rhyming

would

be like

following

a

set

of

footprints

continually

appearing

ahead

of

you.

Fixed

form,

in

our

time

anyway,

seems

to

bring

you

to

a

place

where

someone

has been before.

In

a

poem,

you

wish

to

reach

a

new

place.

And

this

requires

pure

wandering?that

rare

condition when

you

have

no

external

guides

at

all,

only

your

own,

inner

impulse

to

go,

or

to

turn,

or

to

stand

still:

113 Criticism

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when the sound

of

the word

on

which

a

line ends does

not

limit the

direction of

the

when

the

voice

does

not

subjugate

speech,

but

conforms

to

its

ir

regular

curves,

to

the

terrain

itself.

Robert Frost said

writing

free

verse was

like

playing

tennis

with the

net

down.

It

is

an

apt

analogy,

except

that the

poem

is

less

like

a

game

than like

a

journey,

where there

are

so

many

real

obstacles

in

the

nature

of the

case

that

it

would be

a

kind

of

evasion

to

invent

additional,

arbitrary,

verbal

ones.

The

first

poet

in

English

wholly

to

discard outward form?to

be

modern

in

this

sense?is

Walt

Whitman.

I

have

sometimes

noticed

a

certain

anti-intellectu

alism,

a

lack of balance

and

reasonableness,

even

perhaps

a

certain

thickheaded

ness,

in

American writers.

Who

would have

thought

it

possible

to create

a

great

book

of the soul

out

of the search

to

kill

a

whale?

Or

who

could have

supposed

that

to

describe

a

few months

spent

in

a

cabin

in

the

woods could

produce

a

masterpiece

of the

spirit?

Once I

witnessed

in

Paris

a

meeting

between

William

Faulkner and

some

French

intellectuals. The

meeting

was a

failure,

because when

ever

anyone

turned

to

Faulkner

to

ask his

opinion

on a

weighty

matter,

he would

reply,

"Oh,

I'm

not

a

literary

man,

I'm

just

a

farmer."

Had

Whitman

been

more

clever,

conceivably

he

could

have

turned

out

to

be

as

good

a

poet

as

Whittier

or

Longfellow.

He

was

too

awkward,

he had

no

facility

and

he

was

too

pigheaded

to

acquire

it. As

everyone

knows,

his

attempts

to

write

formal

poetry

were

horrible failures.

It

was more

than that: the

turmoil

within

him,

in

which he

believed,

the

chaos of the

world,

which

he

loved,

couldn't

be

turned into

neat

stanzas

without

suffering

betrayal.

Whitman

gave

up

the

at

tempt

to

be

a

poet

like the

others

and

followed,

rather,

his

own

intimations

of

a

wilder,

freer

poetry

which could

not

be

contained

in

the old forms.

Halfway

through

his

life

he discovered the

absolutely

new.

The

universities

suppressed

the

discovery

for

a

hundred

years,

always

prefer

ring

more

formal

or

learned

poets,

such

as,

in

our

time,

Frost,

Pound,

and

Eliot,

whose work

is

better

suited

to

classrooms,

because

with them

it

is

possible

to

make

an

exegesis

of

the

poem;

whereas

with Whitman the

exegesis

has

to

be of

our

lives.

When

I

was

in

college

I

was

taught

that Whitman

was

just

a

compulsive

blabber

and

a

nut.

Whenever

I

read

"Song

of

Myself,"

it

strikes

me

afresh how

miraculous

Whitman

is,

how

abiding

is

his

affection for

us,

how

open

and human he

remains,

how

contemporary

is

his

language,

how

the cadences of

his voice

come

from

this

very

world where

we

live.

But

each

man

and each

woman

of

you

I lead

upon

a

knoll,

My

left

hand

hooking

you

round the

waist,

My

right

hand

pointing

to

landscapes

of

continents

and

the

public

road.

Not

I,

not

any

one

else

can

travel that road for

you,

You

must

travel

it

for

yourself.

It

is

not

far,

it is

within

reach,

114

Perhaps

you

have

been

on

it

since

you

were

born

and

did

not

know,

Perhaps

it

is

everywhere

on

water

and

on

land.

Shoulder

your

duds,

dear

son,

and

I

will

mine,

and

let

us

hasten

forth,

Wonderful

cities and free

nations

we

shall

fetch

as

we

go.

If

you

tire,

give

me

both

burdens,

and

rest

the

chuff

of

your

hand

on

my

hip,

And

in

due

time

you

shall

repay

the

same

service to

me,

For

after

we

start

we never

lie

by again.

This

day

before dawn

I

ascended

a

hill

and

look'd

at

the crowded

heaven,

And I

said

to

my

spirit

When

we

become

the

enfolders

of

those

orbs,

and

the

pleasure

and

knowledge

of

everything

in

them,

shall

we

be

fill'd

and

satisfied

then?

And

my

spirit

said

No,

We

but

level

that

lift

to

pass

and continue

beyond.

You

are

also

asking

me

questions

and

I

hear

you,

I

answer

that

I

cannot

answer,

you

must

find

out

for

yourself.

Sit

a

while

dear

son,

Here

are

biscuits

to eat and

here

is

milk

to

drink,

But

as

soon

as

you

sleep

and

renew

yourself

in sweet

clothes,

I

kiss

you

with

a

good-by

kiss and

open

the

gate

for

your

egress

hence.

Long

enough

have

you

dream'd

contemptible

dreams,

Now I

wash

the

gum

from

your

eyes

.

. .

Not

long

after

my

own

discovery

of

Whitman,

Allen

Ginsberg's

"Howl"

appeared.

Ginsberg

is

not

the first

poet

to

claim

to

be the

son

of

Whitman.

Hart

Crane

felt himself

in

the

line

of

descent,

and

William Carlos

Williams,

too,

a

little;

and

even

Pound

grudgingly

announced

himself

a

relation.

But it strikes

me

when

I

read "Howl"

that

perhaps

Ginsberg

is

the first

whom

Whitman would

have

acknowledged

as

the

true

offspring.

The

beginning

of "Sunflower

Sutra"

is

as

good

an

illustration

as

any.

I

walked

on

the

banks of the

tincan

banana

dock

and

sat

down

under

the

huge

shade

of

a

Southern

Pacific

locomotive

to

look

at

the

sunset

over

the box

house

hills

and

cry.

115

Criticism

Jack

Kerouac

sat

beside

me on

a

busted

rusty

iron

pole,

companion,

we

thought

the

same

thoughts

of the

soul,

steel

roots

of

trees

of

machinery.

The

oily

water

on

the

river

mirrored the

red

sky,

sun

sank

on

top

of

final

Frisco

peaks,

no

fish

in

that

stream,

no

hermit

in

those

mounts,

just

ourselves

rheumy-eyed

and

hungover

like

old

bums

on

the

river

bank,

tired and

wily.

Look

at

the

Sunflower,

he

said,

there

was

a

dead

gray

shadow

against

the

sky,

big

as a

man,

sitting

dry

on

top

of

a

pile

of

ancient

sawdust?

?I

rushed

up

enchanted?it

was

my

first

sunflower,

memories

of

Blake?my

visions?Harlem

and Hells

of

the

Eastern

rivers,

bridges

clanking

Joes

Greasy

Sandwiches,

dead

baby

carriages,

black treadless

tires

forgotten

and

unretreaded,

the

poem

of the

river

bank,

condoms

&

pots,

steel

knives,

nothing

stainless,

only

the dank muck and the

razor

sharp

artifacts

passing

into the

past?

and the

gray

Sunflower

poised against

the

sunset,

crackly

bleak

and

dusty

with the

smut

and

smog

and

smoke of

olden locomotives

in its

eye

corolla of

bleary

spikes

pushed

down

and

broken like

a

battered

crown,

seeds fallen

out

of

its

face,

soon

to-be-toothless

mouth of

sunny

air,

sunrays

obliterated

on

its

hairy

head like

a

dried

wire

spiderweb,

leaves

stuck

out

like

arms

out

of

the

stem,

gestures

from

the sawdust

root,

broke

pieces

of

plaster

fallen

out

of

the black

twigs,

a

dead

fly

in its

ear,

Unholy

battered

old

thing

you

were,

my

sunflower

O

my

soul,

I

loved

you

then!

There

is

something

tattered,

monstrous,

and

bedraggled,

about

this

poetry.

It

is

so

shapeless,

so

lacking

in

proportion,

harmony,

orderly

progression.

Wherever the

tone

becomes

elevated,

it

gets

pulled

back

down

by

the

earthy

and crude.

The

"beautiful"

is

almost

wholly

absent.

Yet the

poem

undeniably

is

touched with

a

certain

glory.

This

glory

has

to

do

with the

upwelling

of love

in

one

of the dirtiest

places

on

earth,

the

railroad

yard,

for the

strange,

solitary,

common

life,

the

sunflower's,

the

tin

cans',

Jack

Kerouac's,

the

locomotive's,

one's

own.

Why

does

it

seem,

in

the

modern

poem,

that

the less formal

beauty

there

is,

the

more

possible

it

is to

discover the

glory

of the

ordinary?

I

think

of

Donatello's

statue in

wood

of

Magdalen:

her

body

ravaged,

her

face drawn

with

suffering,

her

hair

running

down

her

body

indistinguishable

from

her

rags.

She

is in

ruins. Yet her feet

remain

beautiful. The

reason

they

are

beautiful

is

that

they

have

touched

the

earth all their life.

In

the

same

way,

in

the

bedraggled

poem

of

the

modern,

it

is

the

images,

those

lowly

touchers

of

physical

reality,

which

remain

shining.

116

The

"absolutely

modern"

poem

also

discards

the

inner conventions

of

poetry?conventions

whose function

was

to

give

us

ways

of

coming

to

terms

with

our

feelings.

The

more

entrenched

the

conventions,

the

quicker

they

dismiss

the

feelings

and

get

to

the

terms.

Or

they

so

imbue

us

with conventional

feelings

that

we

no

longer

feel

at

all.

We

can see

this,

I

think,

by

examining

a

few

poems

dealing

with

death,

that

final

and

most

savage

of

realities. This

passage

is

from

Tennyson's

"In

Me

moriam":

O,

yet

we

trust

that somehow

good

Will

be the final

goal

of

ill,

To

pangs

of

nature,

sins

of

will,

Defects

of

doubt,

and

taints

of

blood;

That

nothing

walks

with

aimless

feet;

That

not

one

life

shall

be

destroy'd,

Or

cast

as

rubbish

to

the

void,

When God

hath

made

the

pile complete;

That

not

a worm

is

cloven

in

vain;

That

not

a

moth

with

vain

desire

Is

shrivell'd

in

a

fruitless

fire,

Or

but subserves another's

gain.

Behold,

we

know

not

anything;

I

can

but

trust

that

good

shall

fall

At last?far

off?at

last,

to

all,

And

every

winter

change

to

spring.

The

convention

of

the

elegy

requires

not

only

the

expression

of

grief

but

also

a

consolation

to

put

against

it:

a

suggestion

that life

goes

on,

a

promise

of

immortality,

a

hint that God

had

arranged

this death for

His

own

ultimately

beautiful

purposes. By

the time

this

convention

gets

to

the

nineteenth

century,

it has

become

self-conscious

and

deliberate,

and

therefore destructive.

Its

crime

is to

break

down

according

to

a

formula the

mystery

of human

feelings.

It

is not

the

message

so

much

as

the

strained

clarity

of the

message,

the

unraveling

of

the

mystery,

which

takes

poetry

like this

into the

unreal.

In

that

passage

from

"In

Memoriam,"

Tennyson

himself

realized he

was

at

the

threshold

of

nonsense;

hence

the

stuttering

in

the

last

lines.

Contrast that

passage

to

these little

poems

on

the

same

subject,

which

are

neither

terribly

clear

nor

entirely

consoling.

The

first,

a

fragment,

is

spoken

by

a man

looking

on

the dead

body

of

his wife:

Get

up

and

let

us

look

for

caterpillars!

Get

up

and

let

us

dig

up

wild onions!

Like

one

who

could

get

up

at

any

moment,

you

lie

there.

Stop sleeping

and

get

up!

Get

up

and kiss me!1

117 Criticism

Instead

of solemn

grief,

there

is

a

show

of

pique

at

the dead

one

for

having

died.

The

poem

has,

of

course,

tragic

overtones,

having

been

invented

out

of

sorrow.

But

whatever

consolation

this

poem

offers

is

not

theoretical:

it is

actual

relief,

an

actual

transformation

of burdened

emotions.

In

this

poem

a woman

speaks

:

Let

us

sit

down

together,

We'll

stay

here,

no

matter

how

hot the

sun.

This

morning,

beside the

mango-tree,

that

man

shot

you,

Close

by

your

father's

grave

at

Partatapu.

I

have

lots

of

hair

between

my

legs

And

I

think he's

going

to

grab

me.2

She

fears

this,

and she

also

appears

to

desire

it.

In

the

same

breath she

expresses

both

a

wish

to

suffer her

grief

unconsoled,

and

a

longing

for the natural

life

to

gather

her

up

again.

Moreover,

she admits

to

the

dead husband the

possibility

of

new

love,

not

as a

guilty

confession,

but

as a

kind

of threat. The

poem

does

not

violate

the

ambivalence of

her

feelings.

One

of the

greatest

of

all

death

poems

is

Lorca's

lament for

Ignacio

S?nchez

Mej?as.

The

courage

of

this

poem

is

awesome.

Pain,

rage,

torn

love,

mingle

undiluted,

unconsoled.

Here

is

the

section

called,

"The

Laid-Out

Body":

This

stone

is

a

forehead

where

dreams

groan

for lack

of

winding

water

and

frozen

cypresses.

This

stone is

a

shoulder for

carrying

time

away

with

trees

of

tears

and ribbons and

planets.

I

have

seen

grey

rains

running

toward the

sea

holding

up

tender

riddled

arms

to

get

away

from the

stone

lying

here

which

tears

limbs off but doesn't

soak

up

the

blood.

For

this

stone

hooks

into seeds and

clouds,

skeletons

of

larks,

wolves of the

twilight:

yet

makes

no

cry,

no

crystals,

no

flames,

only

bullrings,

more

bullrings

without

walls.

Ignacio

the well-born lies

out

on

the

stone.

It's

all

over.

What's

happening?

Look

at

him:

death

has

spread

pale

sulphur

on

his

face,

it has

put

the

head

of

a

dark minotaur

upon

him.

It's all

over.

The

rain

comes

in at

his

mouth.

The

air

as

though

crazy

flies

out

of

his

broken

chest,

and

love,

soaked

through

by

the

tears

of

snow,

huddles

at

her

fires

on

the

mountains

over

the ranches.

118

What

are

they

saying?

A

fetid silence

seeps

down.

We

are

here,

before

this

body

about

to

disappear,

this

pure

shape

which

once

held

nightingales,

we

watch

it

being gored

full

of bottomless

holes.

Who

rumples

the

shroud?

It's

not true

what he

says!

Here

no one

is to

sing,

no

one

is to

wail

in

a

corner,

or

dig

his

spurs

in,

or

frighten

the snake:

here I

want

only

eyes

wide

open

to

gaze

on

this

body

without

ever

resting.

I

want to

see

here

those

men

of

ringing

voice.

Those

men

who

break

stallions

and

master

rivers:

men

whose

skeletons

make

themselves heard and

who

sing

with mouths

full of

sunlight

and flints.

This

is

where

I

want to

see

them.

Facing

the

stone.

Facing

this

body

whose

reins

have been

broken.

I

want

them

to

show

me

if

there

is

some

way

out

for

this

captain

death

has tied

down.

I

want

them

to

teach

me

to

weep

like

a

river,

one

with

gentle

mists

and banks that

are

so

tall

I

could bear

Ignacio's

body

away

on

it

silently,

out

of

earshot

of

the double

snorts

of the

bulls.

Now let

him

go

off into the round

bullring

of the

moon

who

has,

when

new,

the

face of

a

sad,

quiet

bull;

let him

go

off

into

the

night

where fish

stop

singing

and

into the

white

thickets

of frozen smoke.

Do

not

allow

them

to

put

handkerchiefs

over

his

face,

let him

get

used

to

the

death

he

has

put

on.

Go,

Ignacio:

leave behind

the hot

bellowing.

Sleep,

soar,

rest:

the

sea

itself dies.

Simone

Weil

wrote:

"Avoid

beliefs

which fill

the

emptiness,

which

sweeten

the bitterness. Avoid

the belief

in

immortality,

and

the

belief

in

the

use

fulness

of

sin,

and

the belief

in

the

guiding

hand

of

Providence.

For,"

she

goes

on,

"love

is not

consolation,

it is

light."

This

is

also

true

for

poetry.

The

poetics

of

heaven

agrees

to

the

denigration

of

pain

and

death;

in

the

poetics

of

the

physical

world

these

are

the

very

elements.

Think

of

Emily

Dickinson's

poem:

I

heard

a

Fly

buzz?when

I

died?

The

Stillness

in

the

Room

119

Criticism

Was like

the Stillness

in

the Air

Between

the

Heaves

of

Storm?

The

Eyes

around?had

wrung

them

dry?

And

Breaths

were

gathering

firm

For

that last

Onset?when the

King

Be

witnessed?in

the

Room?

I

willed

my

Keepsakes?Signed

away

What

portion

of

me

be

Assignable?and

then

it

was

There

interposed

a

Fly?

With Blue?uncertain

stumbling

Buzz

Between

the

light?and

me?

And

then the Windows

failed?and then

I

could

not

see

to

see?

Those

sitting

by

the

bedside

awaiting

her death have

become

abstrac

tions?solemn,

hushed

figures

prefiguring

the

beings

of

the

life

to

come.

Into

this

scene

appears

the

fly?its

"Blue,

uncertain

stumbling

Buzz" the

only

physical

image

in

the

poem?the

fly,

the

creature

which disdains

spirit

and

hungers

only

for flesh.

Of

course,

it is

repulsive

that

a

fly

come

to

you,

if

you

are

dying

and

if

it

may

be

a

corpse

fly,

its

thorax

the

hysterical

green

color of

slime. And

yet

in

the

illumination of

the

dying

moment,

everything

the

poet

knew

is

transfigured.

The

fly

appears,

physical,

voracious,

a

last vital

sign.

The

most

ordinary

thing,

the

most

despised,

may

be

the

one

chosen

to

bear the

strange

brightening,

this

last

moment

of increased life.

A

dying

Victorian

woman,

as we

know,

should have had

her

mind

fixed

on

the

heavenly

kingdom.

Yet

that

consolation,

foolproof

as

it

seems,

probably

never

did

work

properly.

When

we

try

to

picture

eternal life

as

it

might

be,

something

always

goes

sour.

Here

is

Milton's

description

of

heaven:

No

sooner

had th'

Almighty

ceas't,

but

all

The multitude

of

Angels,

with

a

shout

Loud

as

from numbers

without

number,

sweet

As

from blest

voices,

uttering

joy,

Heav'n

rung

With

Jubilee,

and loud

Hosannas

fill'd

Th' eternal

Regions:

lowly

reverent

Towards

either Throne

they

bow,

and

to

the

ground

With

solemn

adoration down

they

cast

Thir

Crowns

inwove

with

Amarant

and

Gold,

Immortal

Amarant,

a

Flowr

which

once

In

Paradise,

fast

by

the

Tree

of life

Began

to

bloom,

but

soon

for

mans

offence

To Heav'n

remov'd,

where first

it

grew,

there

grows

And flours

aloft

shading

the Fount

of

Life,

120

And

where the

river

of

Bliss

through

midst

of

Heavn

Rowls

o'er

Elisian

Flowrs

her

Amber

stream;

With

these

that

never

fade the

Spirits

Elect

Bind

thir

resplendent

locks

inwreath'd with

beams,

Now

in

loose

garlands

thick thrown

off,

the

bright

Pavement

that

like

a

Sea

of

Jasper

shon

Impurpl'd

with

Celestial

Roses smil'd.

Then

Crown'd

again

thir

gold'n

Harps

they

took,

Harps

ever

tun'd,

that

glittering

by

thir side

Like

Quivers

hung,

and with Praeamble

sweet

Of

charming

symphonie

they

introduce

Thir

sacred

Song,

and

waken

raptures

high;

No

voice

exempt,

no

voice

but well could

joine

Melodius

part,

such

concord

is in

Heav'n

. .

.

Maybe

our

earthly

terminology

is too

shoddy,

too

physical,

too

much

at

the

mercy

of

time,

to

invoke

an

eternal

realm. The

word

"paradise,"

for

ex

ample,

like

all

our

words for

the

unknown,

is,

in

Emerson's

phrase,

a

fossilized

metaphor,

coming

from the

Persian?from

para,

"around",

and

daeza,

"wall":

a

walled

place,

an

earthly

garden.

So

we

could

put

all

the blame

on

words.

But

isn't

the

very

concept

of

paradise

also

only

a

metaphor?

Our

idea

of

that

place

of

bliss

must

be

a

dream

extrapolated

from

our

rapturous

moments

on

earth,

mo

ments

perhaps

of

our

infancy,

perhaps

beyond

that,

of

our

foetal

existence.

The

instincts

grasp elementary

errors,

and

it

seems

that all

true

poems?poems

in

touch

with the

instincts?including

those

poems

whose

whole

ambition

is to

glorify

heaven?have

to

make known their real

loyalties.

She has

left

us;

she

will

never come

back the

way

she

was.

She

will

never

chop

honey,

as

she used

to,

Never

dig

yams

with her

digging

stick.

She

has

left

us;

she

will

never

come

back

the

way

she

was.

There

are

lots

of mussels

in

the

creek.

But

she who lies

here

will

not

dig

them

again.

We

will

go

on

fishing

for

codfish

as we

always

have.

But

the

one

lying

here

will

never

ask

us

for oil

again,

Oil for

her

hair,

she

will

never

need

oil

again.

She

will

never use

fire

again,

In

the

place

where

she

goes,

there

are

no

fires,

For

she

goes

among

the

women,

the

dead

women,

And

women

cannot

make fires.

There

is

plenty

of

fruit

and

grass-seed

But

not

a

bird

or

animal

in

the

heaven of women.3

And

the

following

poem,

from

classical

Tamil,

written

approximately

two

thousand

years

ago,

confronts that

question

even more

directly:

121

Criticism

Where

the

pepper

vine

grows

and

troops

of

monkeys

live

off

the

young

leaves,

among

his

cliffs he

stays,

far

away;

he

is

a

sweet

man,

yet.

And tell

me,

is

even

the

so-called

sweet

heaven

sweeter,

really,

than the

affliction

that dear

ones

bring?4

This Twentieth

Century

poem,

by

Sergei

Yesenin,

expresses

the

same

loyalty,

even

if

with

a

certain

desperate

passion:

Dear birch

woods,

you,

earth,

and

you,

sands

of

the

plains!

I cannot

hide

my

anguish

at

this

crowd of

departing

fellow-men.

In

this world

I

have loved

too

much

everything

that clothes

the

world with flesh.

Peace

be

to

the

aspens

which

open

their

branches and

gaze

into

pink

water.

I have

cherished

many

thoughts

in

silence,

I

have

made

up

many

songs

in

my

head,

and

I

am

happy

to

have breathed

and

lived

on

this

gloomy

earth.

I

am

happy

to

think

that

I

have

kissed

women,

crumpled

flowers,

lain about

on

the

grass

and have

never

struck

animals,

our

lesser

brethren,

on

the head.

I

know

that thickets

do

not

blossom

there,

nor

do

the

rye-stalks

jingle

their swan-like

necks.

And this

is

the

reason

I

tremble

at

the crowd of

departing

fellow-men.

I

know

that

in

the land

to

come

there

will

not

be these

cornfields

gleaming

in

the haze.

It

is

because

they

live

with

me

on

earth

that

men

are

dear

to

me.

In

the

desolation of

the

universe,

the

brief,

tender

acts,

the

beauty

that

passes,

which

belong

to

life

in

the

world,

are

the

only

heaven. Yet

not

very

long

after

he

wrote

the

poem,

Yesenin

killed

himself.

122

It is

perhaps

true

that

a

poem

entails

a

struggle

with the

poet's

own

nature,

that

it

comes

not

only

out

of

what he

is

but

out

of what

he

tries,

almost

certainly

vainly,

to

be,

out

of

his

desire

to

be

changed.

Yet

in

Yesenin's

poem

we

can

also

perhaps

feel

the suicidal

presence,

feel it

as

an

essential element

in

this

hymn

to

earthly

life.

I doubt

that,

in

serious

poems,

death and life

can

be

separ

ated

at

all.

It

is

obvious

that

poems

expressing

a

craving

for heaven involve the

death-wish.

In

the

great

poems

affirming

life

we

may

be

even more

clearly

in

the

presence

of

the

hunger

to

die.

Freud

says:

"The

most

universal

endeavor of

all

living

substance

[is]

to

return to

the

quiescence

of

the

inorganic

world."

Roethke

writes:

I

saw a

young

snake

glide

Out

of the mottled shade

And

hang,

limp

on

a

stone:

A

thin

mouth,

and

a

tongue

Stayed,

in

the

still

air.

It

turned;

it

drew

away;

Its

shadow bent

in

half;

It

quickened,

and

was

gone.

I

felt

my

slow blood

warm.

I

longed

to

be

that

thing,

The

pure,

sensuous

form.

And

I

may

be,

some

time.

Of

course,

the

desire

to

be

some

other

thing

is

in

itself

suicidal,

involving

as

it

must

a

willingness

to

cease

to

be

a

man,

to

be

extinct.

Robinson

Jeffers

makes

this

point

so

explicit

in

his

poem

"Vulture,"

that

he

is

obliged,

in

the

poem,

to

pull

back,

to resist.

I had

walked

since

dawn

and

lay

down

to

rest

on a

bare

hillside

Above

the

ocean.

I

saw

through

half-shut

eyelids

a

vulture

wheeling

high

up

in

heaven,

And

presently

it

passed again,

but lower

and

nearer,

its

orbit

narrowing,

I

understood

then

That

I

was

under

inspection.

I

lay

death-still

and heard

the

flight-feathers

Whistle above

me

and make their circle and

come

nearer.

I

could

see

the

naked red head

between the

great

wings

Bear

downward

staring.

I

said,

"My

dear

bird,

we

are

wasting

time here.

These old bones will

still

work;

they

are

not

for

you."

But

how beautiful

he

looked,

gliding

down

On

those

great

sails;

how beautiful he

looked,

veering

123

Criticism

away

in

the

sea-light

over

the

precipice.

I tell

you

solemnly

That

I

was

sorry

to

have

disappointed

him. To be

eaten

by

that

beak and become

part

of

him,

to

share

those

wings

and

those

eyes?

What

a

sublime

end of one's

body,

what

an

enskyment;

What

a

life after death.

In

poems

of

love

for

some

other

thing?be

it

a

stone,

a

rat,

a

vulture,

a

blade

of

grass?we

do

not

find

simply

the desire for

extinction;

for

this

desire

may

be

the

negative

face

of the

desire

for

union,

and thus

a

desire for

more,

not

less,

life.

It

brought

Yesenin,

and

many

another,

it is

true,

to

a

real death.

But

it

may

also

happen,

in

life,

that

what

we

love

may

enter

us

and

exist

anew

within

us.

Perhaps,

reincarnated,

Roethke shall become

the

snake?it

doesn't matter?but

already

the

snake

has

become Roethke.

The

"absolutely

modern"

poem

is

abso

lutely

ancient.

Rilke

wrote:

How

much

every

one

of

our

deepest

raptures

makes itself

inde

pendent

of

duration

and

passage;

indeed,

they

stand

vertically

upon

the

courses

of

life,

just

as

death, too,

stands

vertically

upon

them;

they

have

more

in

common

with all the

aims

and

movements

of

our

vital

ity.

Only

from

the side of death

(when

death

is not

accepted

as

an

extinction,

but

imagined

as an

altogether

surpassing

intensity), only

from the

side of

death,

I

believe,

is

it

possible

to

do

justice

to

love.5

And

in

the Ninth

Elegy

he

goes

on

to

speak

of

that

transformation of

what

is

loved

into

ourselves,

when

we

"look back"

on

it,

from

the

"other

side

of

nature":

The wanderer

coming

down

to

the

valley

does

not

bring

back

a

handful

of

dust,

inexpressible

dust,

to

the

valley,

he

brings

a

pure

word

he

has

learned,

the blue

and

yellow

gentian.

Are

we

here

perhaps

just

to

say:

horse,

bridge,

fountain,

gate,

jug,

olive

tree,

window

possibly, pillar,

tower?

.

but

to

say

it,

remember,

to

say

it

as

the

things

themselves

never

dreamed

they

could

be.

Isn't this the

secret aim

of

the

cunning

earth,

when

it

urges

on

lovers,

to

make

everything

intensify

its

life within them?

Threshold: how much

it

means

to

two

lovers,

as

they

wear

down

a

little

their

own

already

worn

doorsills,

they

in

turn,

after

so

many

before,

before

all

those

still

to

come

.

lightly.

Here

is

the

time

for

the

tellable,

here

its

country.

*

Praise the

world

to

the

angel?not

the

inexpressible

realm:

you

can't

impress

him with

the

splendor

of

your

feelings;

124

you

are

only

a

beginner

in

the

cosmos

where

he feels

more

feelingly.

So show

him

some

ordinary

thing,

which has been

given

form

through

the

ages,

until

it

comes

to

life

in

our

hands,

part

of ourselves.

Tell

him

about

things.

He

will stand

amazed,

as

you

did

beside the

rope-maker

in

Rome

or

the

potter

by

the Nile.

Show

him

how

happy

a

thing

can

be,

how

pure

and

ours;

how

even

the

moans

of

grief

choose

to

take

form,

to

serve

as

a

thing

to

die

into

a

thing,

to

escape

into

a

bliss

beyond

the violin. The

things

that live

on

departure

are

aware

of

your

praising:

transitory

themselves,

they

count

on

us

to

save

them,

us,

the

most

transient of

all.

They

want

us

to transmute

them,

in

our

invisible

hearts,

into?oh

infinitely?into

our

selves,

whoever

we

are.

Earth,

isn't this

what

you

want:

invisibly

to

rise

up

in

us??Is

not

your

dream

to

be

invisible

some

day?

Earth!

Invisible!

Theology

and

philosophy,

with their

large

words,

their abstract formu

lations,

their

airtight

systems,

which

until

recently they

imagined

would last for

ever,

deal with

paradigms

of

eternity.

The

subject

of the

poem

is

the

thing

which

dies. Zeus

on

Olympus

is

a

theological being;

the

swan

who desires

a

woman en

ters

the

province

of

poetry.

In

"Eloi, Eloi,

lama

sabacthani,"

so

does

Jesus.

Poetry

is

the

wasted breath. This

is

why

it

needs the

imperfect

music

of

the

human

voice,

this

is

why

its

words have

no

higher

aim

than

to

press

themselves

to

us,

to

cling

to

the

creatures

and

things

we

know

and

love,

to

be

the

ragged

garments.

It

is

through

something

radiant

in

our

lives

that

we

have been able

to

dream

of

paradise,

that

we

have been

able

to

invent

the realm

of

eternity.

But

there

is

another

kind

of

glory

in

our

lives

which

derives

precisely

from

our

in

ability

to

enter

that

paradise

or

to

experience

eternity.

That

we

last

only

for

a

time,

that

everyone

and

everything

around

us

lasts

only

for

a

time,

that

we

know

this,

radiates

a

thrilling,

tragic

light

on

all

our

loves,

all

our

relationships,

even

on

those

moments

when

the

world,

through

its

poetry,

becomes

almost

capable

of

spurning

time

and death.

The earth

is

all

that

lives

And

the

earth

shall

not

last.

We

sit

on

a

hillside,

by

the

Greasy

Grass,

And

our

little shadow

lies

out in

the blades of

grass,

until

sunset.6

FOOTNOTES

1

A

version

of

this

fragment

from

a

Dama

song

can

be

found

in

C. M.

Bowra,

Primi

125 Criticism

Uve

Song

(Mentor,

1963),

p.

185.

2

A

Bathurst

Island

poem.

A version

is

in

C. M.

Bowra,

Primitive

Song, p.

204.

3

An

Australian

Euahlayi

poem.

See C. M.

Bowra,

Primitive

Song,

p.

201.

4

Kapilar,

"What

She

Said

to

Her Friend"

from

The

Interior

Landscape,

translated

by

A.

K.

Ramanujan

(Indiana

University

Press,

1967),

p.

85.

5

Briefe

an

eine

junge

Frau

(Im

Insel-Verlag

Zu

Leipzig),

p.

21-22.

6

This

fragment

turned

up among

my papers;

I

don't

know

its

source.

TIR

2/4

Fall 1971

Fiction

Wilfrido

D

Nolledo

Ann Jones

Jerry

Bumpus

Criticism

John

Vernon

Theodore

Roethke's

"Praise

to

the End!"

Poems

Donald

Heiney

Calvin Ismo

Italo

Calvino

The

Other

Eurydice?Tr.

by

Donald

Heiney

Jackson

I.

Cope

Robert Coover's

Fictions

Robert Coover

McDuff

on

the Mound

and

Twenty-three

pages

of

new

poetry

126