I'm getting lazy

... Maybe because the more I read, the less I believe I actually have any ability to speak intelligently about it. I picked up a book of Elizabeth Bishop's poems in the library this week, because I'm not as familiar with her as I could be, and so far I find some of them beautiful, some of them more difficult than it seems they ought to be, and some of them clunky. But I just finished one that really took my breath away - "The Man-Moth." The asterix by the title says that it was a newspaper misprint for "mammoth" ... which puts the poem in a very interesting context. Out of carelessness is born a very deliberately crafted creature.

The idea of a "man-moth" is intriguing; partly because of its terribly tragic connotations. Moths have always felt full of despair to me. Perhaps it's some combination of them being more ordinary and ugly than a butterfly with the whole "like a moth to a flame" image of the hapless creatures bumbling into a fatal fire. Elizabeth Bishop's poem captures that tragic hopelessness along with a sense of persistent survival that is really quite touching. The last stanza is stunning, ending:


Then from the lids
one tear, his only possession, like the bee's sting, slips.
Slyly he palms it, and if you're not paying attention
he'll swallow it. However, if you watch, he'll hand it over,
cool as from underground springs and pure enough to drink.


Why will he swallow his tear? Is it his only sustenance? Or a reminder of the "man" part of him? And if a regular person drank it, would it tell them something about life they were too blinded by the sun to realize? The image is sad, and delicate, and carries itself without an explanation.

Poignancy

Why is it that really good poems make me feel deeply sad? I was thinking about this the other day; it is, no doubt, partly due to the fact that really good poets often write about the mournful sectors of society that some people spend their lives trying to overlook. But that can't be all of it - some poetry is definitely playful, even joyful, and yet the best of these poems still make me sad.

I think it could be because poetry often depends on poignancy for effect; this poignancy, in turn, leaves a bittersweet taste. Even though the poem may speak of a perfect day, that perfect day remains only in dead words on a cold page.

Still reading Seamus Heaney - and I don't really have a poem that illustrates what I'm trying to say, even though all of his poems seem to be shining examples. Maybe because all of his poems seem to be shining examples ...

Seamus Heaney

Once again, I prove myself incapable of keeping up any kind of regular blog ... I finished Paul Muldoon's book "Moy Sand and Gravel" in the meantime, and I really loved it. Now I've moved on to Seamus Heaney's selected poems, "Opened Ground" - I have studied him in the past (particularly his book "North"), so I'm familiar with a lot of his work. It's always a nice feeling to return to a poet you know and re-discover his or her works.

I just re-read "Blackberry Picking," and I feel like that's a poem a lot of people are force-fed in AP high school courses (I know I was). I wonder if poets ever get annoyed with the work they did when they were relatively young ... I'm sure when people glorify "Digging" or "Blackberry Picking," Seamus Heaney is a little pissed. I know I would be. But, in any case, both of those poems deserve glorifying. I like how simple and straightforward his writing is, as opposed to some poets (Muldoon not excluded) who delight in completely confounding their readers. Heaney knows that it is possible to write good, solid poems without packing them full of arcane references. The last stanza of "Blackberry Picking" is so simple, like its narrator, yet so rich:


We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.


The blank verse is unobtrusive, yet carefully structured, and the couplet at the end really brings home the harmonic obviousness of a natural progression that somehow, we humans can never accept. When Heaney says "I always felt like crying," you know exactly what he means.

I think there is a value in difficult poetry, but I also think there is a value in clear, lucid verse. Some poets go a little too far in that direction (Robert Frost, in my opinion), but a poem like "Blackberry Picking" echoes in the mind long after the words' meanings have been digested.