Friday, May 07, 2004
On Hot and Cold
I've made it through a couple new books of poetry recently. Well, they're new to me. Robert Bly has been a writer I've been meaning to get to for a long time, now, mainly because he's a Midwestern poet, living in Minnesota, and he was a good friend to James Wright. I just finished Bly's "Meditations on the Insatiable Soul", a book of poems published in 1994, well after Bly's reputation was established in the publishing community.
Like much of what I've been reading lately, it's hit and miss. Strangely enough, this book started out poorly. For example. And before I start, I think I can confidently state that poems like the one of which I'm about to write may be what bother a lot of people about modern poetry. The first poem in a book, as I've been told, is important. It sets the tone and pace the writer wants to emote. It is strong work. The book may contain some throw-aways -- some poems the publisher wasn't crazy about, but allowed in as filler or curiosity. But the first poem -- this is the attention-getter.
"Men and Women", the first poem in "Meditations" begins with
Horses go on eating the Apostle Island ferns,
Also sheep and goats; also the big-nostriled moose
Who knocks down the common bushes
In his longing for earthly pleasure.
The moose's great cock floats in the lily pads.
That image calms us. His nose calms us.
It's a poem entitled "Men and Women", so the reader expects something about differences, exaggerations, contrasts. And in the third part of the poem, Bly does this, posing men against women, detailing a very absolute difference. But for this first stanza, reading about the calming abilities of a moose's great cock does nothing for me. Rather: it strikes me as extremely reaching, meaning, he's reaching for a reaction. I know he's trying to do something with image. I know poetry is all about imagery. But when it gets to the point of ridiculous, it's going to turn readers off. This is something I can imagine being parodied on late night television. This, the first poem in the very celebrated Robert Bly's book of poems.
But it gets better. In a suite of poems on his father's death, Bly writes:
His long hands,
Large, veined,
Capable, can still
Retain hold of what
He wanted. But
Is that what he
Desired? Some
Powerful engine
Of desire goes on
Turning inside his body.
He never phrased
What he desired,
And I am
His son.
Bly's a master of enjambment, leading the eye to the next line. His capitalization of the first letter in each line goes against popular trend, but it emphasizes the value of each line over the whole composition. Therefore a line like "He never phrased" can still mean "He never phrased / What he desired" but it can also mean, simply, "He never phrased" -- he never wrote. Combine that with the ending of the poem, and the fact that Bly is known as a writer and the poem takes on a near-perfect level of irresolution and uncertainty that seems to be the aim of any non-prose composition.
Like much of what I've been reading lately, it's hit and miss. Strangely enough, this book started out poorly. For example. And before I start, I think I can confidently state that poems like the one of which I'm about to write may be what bother a lot of people about modern poetry. The first poem in a book, as I've been told, is important. It sets the tone and pace the writer wants to emote. It is strong work. The book may contain some throw-aways -- some poems the publisher wasn't crazy about, but allowed in as filler or curiosity. But the first poem -- this is the attention-getter.
"Men and Women", the first poem in "Meditations" begins with
Horses go on eating the Apostle Island ferns,
Also sheep and goats; also the big-nostriled moose
Who knocks down the common bushes
In his longing for earthly pleasure.
The moose's great cock floats in the lily pads.
That image calms us. His nose calms us.
It's a poem entitled "Men and Women", so the reader expects something about differences, exaggerations, contrasts. And in the third part of the poem, Bly does this, posing men against women, detailing a very absolute difference. But for this first stanza, reading about the calming abilities of a moose's great cock does nothing for me. Rather: it strikes me as extremely reaching, meaning, he's reaching for a reaction. I know he's trying to do something with image. I know poetry is all about imagery. But when it gets to the point of ridiculous, it's going to turn readers off. This is something I can imagine being parodied on late night television. This, the first poem in the very celebrated Robert Bly's book of poems.
But it gets better. In a suite of poems on his father's death, Bly writes:
His long hands,
Large, veined,
Capable, can still
Retain hold of what
He wanted. But
Is that what he
Desired? Some
Powerful engine
Of desire goes on
Turning inside his body.
He never phrased
What he desired,
And I am
His son.
Bly's a master of enjambment, leading the eye to the next line. His capitalization of the first letter in each line goes against popular trend, but it emphasizes the value of each line over the whole composition. Therefore a line like "He never phrased" can still mean "He never phrased / What he desired" but it can also mean, simply, "He never phrased" -- he never wrote. Combine that with the ending of the poem, and the fact that Bly is known as a writer and the poem takes on a near-perfect level of irresolution and uncertainty that seems to be the aim of any non-prose composition.
