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Wednesday, June 29, 2011
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Anna Wickham's "The Contemplative Quarry": XII
I am reading Jennifer Vaughan Jones's biography of Anna Wickham alongside the poems. Quite horrified to learn that her husband committed her to a mental asylum for no reason other than the suspicion of an illicit liaison, her emotional outbursts and her stubborn desire to write poetry. In one of these outbursts, from the garden, Anna had shouted at Patrick her poem "Nervous Prostration," which begins:
Little wonder that Patrick was angered by Anna's poetry, an anger easily transmuted into a "concern" for Anna's sanity. Though Anna suffered much fear and many indignities in Brooke House, the asylum, she secretly carried out of it at the end of her time there 80 poems she had written. These were to form the core of the collection "The Contemplative Quarry," published by Harold Monro, of The Poetry Bookshop, who became a staunch supporter of Anna's poetry.
Jones's biography discovered an intriguing link between Monro and Brooke House. The mental asylum, a long-established and well-run concern, was one of the sources of Monro's income, and so gave him the financial independence to promote the profitless business of poetry. Jones could not determine if Monro knew of Anna when she was in Brooke House. The doctor who gave Anna paper to write her poems could have told Monro of his unusual patient, knowing Monro's interest in poetry, but nothing can be proven. What is clear is the irony that the man who owned the mental asylum also owned the press and the bookstore.
"XII The Affinity" is about Anna's marriage to Patrick, but in at least one stanza it gains additional resonance when Monro is brought into the picture. The poem begins with great bitterness:
The compulsion in "I have to" is both external and internal, or, more accurate, external pressure changed into internal willfulness. "Ordered" is sharp choice of word, for it connotes not just "orderly" (as in the regimentation of a mental asylum) but also "being ordered around." "Very hungry" and "very lonely," two different conditions, can be read as appositives for each other, due to the missing "and." I find the stark language utterly compelling. The same language animates the rest of the poem:
These lines make me think of Harold Monro as well as Patrick Hepburn, her husband. Does Anna have Monro, her publisher and supporter, in mind too?
The poem goes on to argue in crystal-cut quatrains that "the true male never yet walked/ Who liked to listen when his mate talked," and so the speaker-wife has learned from "a wealth of living" that she "must be silent, if [she] would be loved."
The poem turns at this point, for it realizes that female silence is a potential source of strength: it forces her to do all her thinking "by stealth," like the early Christians who pray secretly in the catacombs. If she were allowed to speak, "the things [she] spoke/ Would fill the air a while, and clear like smoke." Forbidden to speak, she has to write down her thoughts and so she can "show them to the Town," and not just to a husband, and so she can "re-read" her own thoughts in the future. I find immensely moving the idea that writing, for this woman, is not just for a public audience, but also for her private self.
The poem ends by repeating the opening tercet, which is a line shorter than the quatrains in the poem's body, and so enacts the diminishment that the stanza describes:
I said "diminishment," but Anna Wickham made much of little.
I married a man of the Croydon class
When I was twenty-two,
And I vex him, and he bores me
Till we don't know what to do!
It isn't good form in the Croydon class
To say you love your wife,
So I spend my days with the tradesmen's books
And pray for the end of life...
Little wonder that Patrick was angered by Anna's poetry, an anger easily transmuted into a "concern" for Anna's sanity. Though Anna suffered much fear and many indignities in Brooke House, the asylum, she secretly carried out of it at the end of her time there 80 poems she had written. These were to form the core of the collection "The Contemplative Quarry," published by Harold Monro, of The Poetry Bookshop, who became a staunch supporter of Anna's poetry.
Jones's biography discovered an intriguing link between Monro and Brooke House. The mental asylum, a long-established and well-run concern, was one of the sources of Monro's income, and so gave him the financial independence to promote the profitless business of poetry. Jones could not determine if Monro knew of Anna when she was in Brooke House. The doctor who gave Anna paper to write her poems could have told Monro of his unusual patient, knowing Monro's interest in poetry, but nothing can be proven. What is clear is the irony that the man who owned the mental asylum also owned the press and the bookstore.
"XII The Affinity" is about Anna's marriage to Patrick, but in at least one stanza it gains additional resonance when Monro is brought into the picture. The poem begins with great bitterness:
I have to thank God I'm a woman,
For in these ordered days a woman only
Is free to be very hungry, very lonely.
The compulsion in "I have to" is both external and internal, or, more accurate, external pressure changed into internal willfulness. "Ordered" is sharp choice of word, for it connotes not just "orderly" (as in the regimentation of a mental asylum) but also "being ordered around." "Very hungry" and "very lonely," two different conditions, can be read as appositives for each other, due to the missing "and." I find the stark language utterly compelling. The same language animates the rest of the poem:
It is sad for Feminism, but still clear
That man, more often than woman, is a pioneer.
If I would confide a new thought,
First to a man must it be brought.
These lines make me think of Harold Monro as well as Patrick Hepburn, her husband. Does Anna have Monro, her publisher and supporter, in mind too?
The poem goes on to argue in crystal-cut quatrains that "the true male never yet walked/ Who liked to listen when his mate talked," and so the speaker-wife has learned from "a wealth of living" that she "must be silent, if [she] would be loved."
The poem turns at this point, for it realizes that female silence is a potential source of strength: it forces her to do all her thinking "by stealth," like the early Christians who pray secretly in the catacombs. If she were allowed to speak, "the things [she] spoke/ Would fill the air a while, and clear like smoke." Forbidden to speak, she has to write down her thoughts and so she can "show them to the Town," and not just to a husband, and so she can "re-read" her own thoughts in the future. I find immensely moving the idea that writing, for this woman, is not just for a public audience, but also for her private self.
The poem ends by repeating the opening tercet, which is a line shorter than the quatrains in the poem's body, and so enacts the diminishment that the stanza describes:
I have to thank God I'm a woman,
For in these ordered days a woman only
Is free to be very hungry, very lonely.
I said "diminishment," but Anna Wickham made much of little.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
A Walk in Victoria's Secret - The Hatching
I found this to be a very touching poem. Again it avoids dealing with polemics directly, unlike so many of her other poems and, therefore, avoids the pitfalls of what I consider her lesser poems. While it may not achieve some of the transcendental moments of Calvin Spotswood or the title poem, still, in its desperate, poverty-stricken domestic scene it hits a chord and does so from beginning to end -
Burning in our twin scarlet fevers,
we were laid out, feet to feet,
on the worn, gold sofa, my brother and me.
The poem goes on to detail the doctor's visit (yes, this was in the time when doctors still made housecalls), the family's desperate circumstances - no food in the house, the father at a bar nursing a beer and a broken furnace and it was COLD. The doctor gives them each a shot and tucks the blanket more firmly around the children's chins and then
-for reasons I cannot
conceive, and so I call it grace-removed from his car's
dark trunk, thick platters old music encased
in paper sleeves.
And he plays for them the Nutcracker Suite. And listening, N concludes of her own body
Something had once been painted there beautifully
and with care. And it had worn away over the years,
or grown encased in a kind of shell?
And N realizes, that through the beauty of music she us able to escape the small tight space and in an orgy of exit the shell will crack open.
I think this poem is the most beautiful of her shorter poems in this collection.
Burning in our twin scarlet fevers,
we were laid out, feet to feet,
on the worn, gold sofa, my brother and me.
The poem goes on to detail the doctor's visit (yes, this was in the time when doctors still made housecalls), the family's desperate circumstances - no food in the house, the father at a bar nursing a beer and a broken furnace and it was COLD. The doctor gives them each a shot and tucks the blanket more firmly around the children's chins and then
-for reasons I cannot
conceive, and so I call it grace-removed from his car's
dark trunk, thick platters old music encased
in paper sleeves.
And he plays for them the Nutcracker Suite. And listening, N concludes of her own body
Something had once been painted there beautifully
and with care. And it had worn away over the years,
or grown encased in a kind of shell?
And N realizes, that through the beauty of music she us able to escape the small tight space and in an orgy of exit the shell will crack open.
I think this poem is the most beautiful of her shorter poems in this collection.
The Pismire Oration
Online here, with audio!
The poem is written in the voice of a queen ant, whose anthill has just been raided by birds. She explains the situation in S1, and admonishes the workers for failing to give the alarm. In S2, she encourages the surviving troops to clean up the anthill, and promises to tell them rousing tales of their formic heritage. In S3, she tells off a caterpillar! And in S4, she gives a little pep talk.
While I discerned the basic outline of the poem quickly, I had to think hard to work out the details, thanks to all the puns, portmanteaus, obscure words, and neologisms. Here's a list of puzzling words, in the order in which they appear in the poem, and my best guesses as to their meanings.
- pismire: an archaic synonym for "ant"
- kreck: onomatopoeia for the noise the Plumeys make
- Plumeys: ant-eating birds
- valley-balls: eggs. Pun on volleyballs.
- lupes: pupae
- liplap danglers: larvae
- mussled: portmanteau of "mussed" and "tousled"
- distrayed: portmanteau of "distressed" and "disarrayed", with a nice coincidental "strayed" inside it.
- "oakmost": something like "farthest". A portmanteau of "oak" and "utmost", but there's no meaning that lives halfway between those two points.
- larum: an archaic synonym for "alarm"
- beware: is not technically a transitive verb, but there's poetry for you. "Warn" wouldn't have worked as well in this context.
- mordered in our buds: murdered in our beds, obviously. "Buds" is a pun, because you're more likely to find an ant in a bud than in a bed, and this poem is filled with nature imagery. (They're actually in an anthill, not in buds, but let's not kill it with excessive literalness here, eh?) "Mord" is an Indo-European root meaning, basically, "die". We get "murder" and "mortality" from it.
- simlings: a portmanteau of "similar" and "siblings". Other ants are not exactly genetic clones of the queen: the workers are produced by sexual reproduction with drones and reproducing females, while drones are haploid and produced from unfertilised eggs (so really, they're sort of half-queens).
- heedance: archaic word for "listening". (I'm reluctant to say "synonym" because they're a bit too different grammatically. I think it's standard but weird English to say "gather round in heedance", but you just plain can't say "gather round in listening".) I'm not sure whether "heedance" was ever common in actual usage, or whether it's one of those fake archaisms.
- bellish: archaic synonym for "embellish". Again, I'm not sure whether it's a real archaism or a fake one.
- bloomheads: blossoms; this one is just a new compound word.
- sparkish: bright like a spark. Also, sparkly. This one breathes new life into a dead metaphor.
- cusp and susp: Cusps are pointy bits. I don't know what "susp" means, aside from "suspend" or "suspension". I suppose the ants are going to stop at the top of the anthill to listen to stories?
- trell: I don't know what this means, if anything. Urbandictionary says "trell is a term given to the most beautiful woman", which fits, but Urbandictionary is not a reliable source. Roughly "queens and trells and hellent warfor" must be kinds of ants.
- hellent warfor: I'm lost here too. "hellent" sounds like "hellbent" and "warfor" sounds like "warrior", which makes the hellent warfor sound like brave soldiers. "Hellent" also sounds like "Hellenic", which gives this story a classical feel. "Warfor" sounds like "warfarin", but that's used to poison rats, and I don't think it has anything to do with ants. So I'm puzzled.
- fattyfiller: caterpillar
- seggy bodments: body segments.
- munge: munch. Literally, though, to munge something is to muss it up.
- Peel off: a pun--both what you do when you leave quickly, and what you do when you remove a caterpillar from a leaf.
- mandicate: portmanteau of "masticate" and "mandibles"
- clingdom: portmanteau of "cling" and "kingdom"--I suppose it's our kingdom that we cling to.
- heapsake: portmanteau of "heap" and "keepsake"--I suppose it's our heap that's a keepsake.
- sylvan lea: woodsy meadow. But also, I think, put there to set up punning resonances with "silver sea".
- rejuice: portmanteau of "rejoice" and "juice". (I picture them clicking drooling mandibles.)
- avids: aphids, but literally, to be avid is to be keen.
- fallage: portmanteau of "fallen" and "foliage".
- mead: can mean either "honey wine" or "meadow". I think it's meant literally as the latter, but intended to resonate with the former too.
- ground and gladly: Obviously, in broad outline, this means "good", but I'm not sure what else the words are doing. Ants like things on the ground, and not, I suppose, their enemies in the air.
- Magog: a name that occurs in the bible numerous times, under numerous guises. (It's not entirely clear whether Magog is an individual or a group.) Pretty sure it's basically an enemy of God--and therefore, a fitting enemy for plumey things that live in the sky.
- smart: smite. Also, sting.
Walk in Victoria's Secret - Louisiana - Late Summer
This one is short and amusing. Two strophes, simple layout. There is a we, a hot summer day, because our bodies have been claimed/by humidity,we walk around in our heads and because, of course what else is there to do on this kind of a day or because even on a hot day, things must be done, the "we" are engaged in the mundane act of painting a baseboard and notice in the back of a closet, a light mold, transported here by some/primeval wind, festers on the toe/of a suede shoe. And plans the destruction of the entire world.
Daniels, in this poem, instead of taking on the large, political topics of feminism, racism, or poverty that she addresses in her other poems, has taken on a very small subject and she does so charmingly. I very much enjoyed her "small" world view and the tongue-in-cheek look at a bit of mold, that, after all, is not so tongue-in-cheek.
Daniels, in this poem, instead of taking on the large, political topics of feminism, racism, or poverty that she addresses in her other poems, has taken on a very small subject and she does so charmingly. I very much enjoyed her "small" world view and the tongue-in-cheek look at a bit of mold, that, after all, is not so tongue-in-cheek.
Blue Iris (poem) by Mary Oliver
I’m picking the title poem in this collection although it’s not the first one. I’ve read the whole book through once to get an overview and will definitely be returning to dwell on some of these further.
All right, onto the poem, Blue Iris, online here:
http://rinabeana.com/poemoftheday/index.php/2006/04/20/blue-iris-by-mary-oliver/
This is actually one of my favourite poems in the whole collection. There is a beautiful economy of words and evocation of strong images.
Now that I’m free to be myself, who am I?
For me, this question in the first line works as an opener because it is interrogative, but also simple and direct, communicating something that is nearly universal as an experience, the sense of dislocation that occurs when structure is removed from our lives. We often don’t know what to do with this newfound freedom, and the rest of the poem becomes an exploration of this anchored in the act of writing itself.
Can’t fly, can’t run and see how slowly I walk
Well, I think, I can read books
These lines suggest a more specific comparison between the narrator and nature, and possibly imply a gradual process of recovery from a long illness. The books provide a way of escaping from the need to be physically active. It could also be that the comparison is to a writer, and the swift moving creatures she is observing around her outside.
“What’s that you’re doing?”
the green-headed fly shouts as it buzzes past
I close the book.
Well, I can write down words, like these, softly.
Here we beautifully see a movement, within two lines, towards expanding the hinted at idea in the previous lines. Now it seems to be moving towards setting up a disjunction between the narrator, first buried in her book, then attempting to write, and the busy life going on all around her. Then:
“What’s that you’re doing? whispers the wind, pausing
in a heap just outside the window.
Give me a little time, I say back to its staring, silver face.
It doesn’t happen all of a sudden, you know.
This is still the build up to the end of the poem, reinforcing the sense of nature conspiring against concentrating on writing, before the volte face in the next lines:
“Doesn’t it?” says the wind, and breaks open, releasing
distillation of blue iris.
And my heart panics not to be, as I long to be,
the empty, waiting, pure, speechless receptacle.
I love these last lines because they completely turn on its head what the reader thinks the poem is about, and I love when a poem does this well. Instead of nature getting in the way of writing, it is recast as the centre of what writing might be about, if the poet can be still enough to listen instead of focusing only on the words on the page. Beautiful stuff.
All right, onto the poem, Blue Iris, online here:
http://rinabeana.com/poemoftheday/index.php/2006/04/20/blue-iris-by-mary-oliver/
This is actually one of my favourite poems in the whole collection. There is a beautiful economy of words and evocation of strong images.
Now that I’m free to be myself, who am I?
For me, this question in the first line works as an opener because it is interrogative, but also simple and direct, communicating something that is nearly universal as an experience, the sense of dislocation that occurs when structure is removed from our lives. We often don’t know what to do with this newfound freedom, and the rest of the poem becomes an exploration of this anchored in the act of writing itself.
Can’t fly, can’t run and see how slowly I walk
Well, I think, I can read books
These lines suggest a more specific comparison between the narrator and nature, and possibly imply a gradual process of recovery from a long illness. The books provide a way of escaping from the need to be physically active. It could also be that the comparison is to a writer, and the swift moving creatures she is observing around her outside.
“What’s that you’re doing?”
the green-headed fly shouts as it buzzes past
I close the book.
Well, I can write down words, like these, softly.
Here we beautifully see a movement, within two lines, towards expanding the hinted at idea in the previous lines. Now it seems to be moving towards setting up a disjunction between the narrator, first buried in her book, then attempting to write, and the busy life going on all around her. Then:
“What’s that you’re doing? whispers the wind, pausing
in a heap just outside the window.
Give me a little time, I say back to its staring, silver face.
It doesn’t happen all of a sudden, you know.
This is still the build up to the end of the poem, reinforcing the sense of nature conspiring against concentrating on writing, before the volte face in the next lines:
“Doesn’t it?” says the wind, and breaks open, releasing
distillation of blue iris.
And my heart panics not to be, as I long to be,
the empty, waiting, pure, speechless receptacle.
I love these last lines because they completely turn on its head what the reader thinks the poem is about, and I love when a poem does this well. Instead of nature getting in the way of writing, it is recast as the centre of what writing might be about, if the poet can be still enough to listen instead of focusing only on the words on the page. Beautiful stuff.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Andrew Hudgins - A Soldier on the Marsh
I'll be honest. This is an exhausting book. There are no easy poems and Hudgins likes to lull the reader in with that old Southern boy trick that sweetly begs one to underestimate him -- common sounding words and plain speak -- then he sparks the trap and I find myself shaken and searching the poem to see how he did it again.
In A Soldier on the Marsh, one of five Marsh poems that anchor the book (Child on the Marsh, Soldier on the Marsh, Husband on the Marsh, Father on the Marsh and finally Christian on the Marsh) Hudgins imagines Lanier, the soldier on leave, returning to the marsh of his childhood.
The marsh is no longer a place of wonder and bounty; now it is a place of flames, storms, blood. It seems wholly unhappy to have Lanier back. I think Hudgins uses the colors red and green to symbolize the battle for Lanier's soul between the marsh (green) and the war (red).
Now, even blue is the color of blood:
Blue as blood hidden in the body,
storm winds tore at oak leaves, which raged
like green birds limed to whipping limbs,
Lanier sits in the marsh while the storm hurls leaves, acorns, and tree limbs at him. As you might expect, he strips off his clothes and begins to play the flute.
In the third strophe, it is sunset and the entire post-storm marsh seems consumed in the color red. Lanier, naked and pale, is touched by this flame and becomes a flame himself: a will-o'-the-wisp. From the red on red on red landscape of the marsh at sunset, Lanier glows hot white.
The battle crescendos as Lanier makes his way home from the marsh. The fields are on fire; a farmer is burning off his land:
But where a dozen fires converged
I found a bright green tulip tree.
Lanier watches as the tulip tree's leaves catch fire like torches, then inside:
the green wood, hot sap chortled, sang
until the branches blew apart
like overheated cannon. The tree
was opening itself to fire.
I have trouble here not just quoting the entire last part. Basically, the tree explodes into the darkness and its embers burn like a "sprawled constellation" before burning out and giving way to the true stars and a song of a bobwhite (quail) singing "its stupid, cheerful name".
What does this mean? Pretty simply, I think that Hudgins is saying that Lanier has survived the war but that a vital part of him has died. Life will continue; but it has been irrevocably changed.
In A Soldier on the Marsh, one of five Marsh poems that anchor the book (Child on the Marsh, Soldier on the Marsh, Husband on the Marsh, Father on the Marsh and finally Christian on the Marsh) Hudgins imagines Lanier, the soldier on leave, returning to the marsh of his childhood.
The marsh is no longer a place of wonder and bounty; now it is a place of flames, storms, blood. It seems wholly unhappy to have Lanier back. I think Hudgins uses the colors red and green to symbolize the battle for Lanier's soul between the marsh (green) and the war (red).
Now, even blue is the color of blood:
Blue as blood hidden in the body,
storm winds tore at oak leaves, which raged
like green birds limed to whipping limbs,
Lanier sits in the marsh while the storm hurls leaves, acorns, and tree limbs at him. As you might expect, he strips off his clothes and begins to play the flute.
In the third strophe, it is sunset and the entire post-storm marsh seems consumed in the color red. Lanier, naked and pale, is touched by this flame and becomes a flame himself: a will-o'-the-wisp. From the red on red on red landscape of the marsh at sunset, Lanier glows hot white.
The battle crescendos as Lanier makes his way home from the marsh. The fields are on fire; a farmer is burning off his land:
But where a dozen fires converged
I found a bright green tulip tree.
Lanier watches as the tulip tree's leaves catch fire like torches, then inside:
the green wood, hot sap chortled, sang
until the branches blew apart
like overheated cannon. The tree
was opening itself to fire.
I have trouble here not just quoting the entire last part. Basically, the tree explodes into the darkness and its embers burn like a "sprawled constellation" before burning out and giving way to the true stars and a song of a bobwhite (quail) singing "its stupid, cheerful name".
What does this mean? Pretty simply, I think that Hudgins is saying that Lanier has survived the war but that a vital part of him has died. Life will continue; but it has been irrevocably changed.
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