Tangled Rope

I must admit I wasn’t familiar with the name and work of Sir William Topaz Mcgonagall (though I presumably read him in my occasional ego-sustaining forays into Very Bad Poetry) until I happened upon Anthony Daniel’s article, “Knight of the White Elephant”, recently published in The New Criterion.

I’ll let the article stand for itself, and simply comment that the most troublesome aspect of the story of McGonagall is not his delusions of genius, nor the cruelty of his audiences, but rather his humanity, his fallibility, his very similarity to each of us. I see my own writing in McGonagall’s poor poetry. I see my own longing for a life imbued with culture in his self-styled commitment as “Poet and Tragedian”. I see myself, I see others, too, and I try not to wince.

Perhaps most devastating in the McGonagall biography is the utter futility of his efforts despite an impossible commitment to his art. McGonagall earned neither satisfactory remuneration or praise for his work during his life, nor fame and respect for his aesthetics after his death. And yet he battled (with “psychological armor-plating”) to fulfill this dream and capitalize on what he clearly saw as a supreme talent. Daniel, comparing the memory of McGonagall to the fellow Scot and better poet Hamish Henderson, remarks that “a cruel posterity does not always distribute fame among writers according to literary merit”–suggesting that though we may remember McGonagall as “the worst poet of the English language” at least we remember him.

If I may say so without malice, to be a poet as McGonagall I’d rather be forgotten.

December is over, and I’ve done my best in the time I’ve had to highlight just a few favorite poems from The Best American Poetry 2009. I hope to review a couple more even though the new year has begun, starting with Kevin Prufer‘s “war” poem “On Mercy” (originally printed in Field):

Knowing he was soon to be executed
the condemned man asked if first he might
					please
have something to drink, if first he might
be drunk.
	So the soldiers brought him a drink
and because there was no hurry, another,
and one for each of them, to.
				Soon they were all
very drunk, and this was merciful
because the man probably didn't understand
when they put him to the wall
				and shot him.

+

I'll marry the man who can prove this happened,
the dying leaves said
			in their descent.

I'll marry the man who looks through that window,
the waiting grasstips said.

But the sun went on with its golden rays
like a zealous child

and the camera-eyed bees jittered mercifully
in the distant branches

+

The man slept on the floor
and the little mouse in his head also slept.

The soldiers didn't know who would drag him away
or where they should hide him
so they laughed nervously and one
offered the body a drink, Ha ha,
					a toast!

then left him by the rich lady's liquor cabinet
where she'd find him when she returned from the hills.

+

I'll marry the girl who kisses the lips
and brings a breath to them,
the starving horses said from their fields.

I'll marry the man who pounds the chest
and starts the heart,
			the caved-in houses said.

And the window let the light in
until the sun failed in the branches
and, like mercy,
		darkness smothered the town.

+

Later in the story, her grown son wrapped him
in a parachute
		and dumped him in a neighbor's yard.

Later, that neighbor, who understood bad luck,
dragged the man to another's lawn.

And so he traveled, yard-to-yard,
				to the edge of town
where at last he slept by a little-traveled road
in a merciful ditch

while bombers unzipped the sky.

And when the town burned, he missed it,
and when the treetops bloomed and charred, he missed it.

I'll marry the man,
the grasstips said in the hot wind,

I'll marry the girl,
the horses said, running from their burning barn, aflame,

their bodies glowing bluely in the dusk.

+

And no one proved it happened,
which was merciful for us all,

the road forgotten, the man gone to root and weed,
to marrow and tooth.

+

And if it had--
		Who would find his jawbone in the loam?
Who would pick out his bullet shells and fillings,
like glitter in the new wood?

And if a man should string them
like words on a golden chain

and make from them a charm,
			and give them to his wife,
wouldn't that be mercy, too?

I’ve seen just enough of Prufer’s poems to recognize the broken lines, such as one would see in dramatic dialogue persisting a meter; these force a slightly longer pause, giving a different body to the shape of the poem. The poem itself is regulated by an undertone of Nature’s incanted whisperings as a man is executed, and his body dumped from one location to another, until the town itself is destroyed by fire bombing.

What really caught me in this poem was its quick narrative style and sharp language. Prufer’s simple, accurate phrasing of descriptions smacks of realism without getting tangled in useless details. The diction walks the line between useful recognition and cliche, or even empathy and sentimentality. Many of his descriptions are personifying: the grasstips wait, the sun is “like a zealous child”, there are “camera-eyed bees”, houses and horses alike speak, “bombers unzipped the sky”.

The most remarkable anthropomorphizing is the reference to the corpse as “the man”, where most would use “body” or at least add the adjective “dead”. This drew my attention to usage of nouns to describe the dead, and I thought of how friends and family of the dead refer to them as if they were still alive, by title (“dad”) or by name (“Nate”), and often in the present tense. We rarely grant this privilege to strangers, using nouns as far removed from the person as possible, like “police found the girl’s body” or “we’ll take a tendon from a cadaver”, etc.

By using “the man” rather than “the body”, “the corpse”, or “the man’s body” the poet is being conscientiously compassionate to the man, and this is a kind of mercy. In general, the poem’s personification of various limbs of Nature would be uncomfortable if not for their contrast with the humans’ actions, which seem less thoughtful and only merciful by accident. The soldiers, probably out of duty more than mercy, grant the condemned man’s last request and give him alcohol. This is as much a chance for them to get drunk themselves as it is born of any mercy for the condemned. They did so “because there was no hurry”, then:

...another,
and one for each of them, to.
				Soon they were all
very drunk, and this was merciful
because the man probably didn't understand
when they put him to the wall
				and shot him.

The soldiers’ drunkenness spares them from terrible anticipation of and guilty conscience after their act, but like Cain realizing what they have done must hide the body, and thus dump it in a civilian’s house. The “rich lady’s” son:

wrapped him
in a parachute
	and dumped him in a neighbor's yard.
Later, that neighbor, who understood bad luck,
dragged the man to another's lawn.

And so he traveled, yard-to-yard,

None of this passing of the corpse is done with any intention of mercy; rather, it is the method by which each household passes responsibility for or connection to the dead away from themselves. In context of war, if the town itself was occupied by the enemy, the condemned man was likely one of their own, but discovered and captured and therefore not to be associated with for fear of reprisal by the occupiers. If the town is in a defensive position, we can guess the man was an enemy, or, perhaps worse, a traitor.

The passing of the body is a fascinating action, however, one that forces each to at least look upon, even touch the man’s body. Though they take no responsibility for the man, the townsfolk are sharing the news of his death from house to house, like gossip. The passing of the body inadvertently requires each household to share in the burden of disposing the corpse, and for a moment I wonder if the people might not fulfill nature’s first requests: “I’ll marry the man who can prove this happened”. Yet to no avail, for the bombers soon come and wipe out the town, and the man is forgotten.

What of the man’s “bullet shells and fillings” strung “like words on a golden chain”, given as “a charm” for “his wife”? It’s difficult for me to guess what the poet intends here, and I range from a abdication of human intention based on love, to an accusation of human ignorance to the past. This closing asks the read “wouldn’t that be mercy, too?”, suggesting the idea that the poet–and the reader–is not certain of what mercy means. I have defined “mercy” implicitly here to mean a kind of conscious compassion, a leniency linked to a degree of forgiveness for one who has done wrong, and this is supported by the poem. But there’s more to it, and I think the poet composed the images and actions with the intent of disrupting some of our assumptions about the meaning of mercy. We believe that humans are capable of mercy; animals are not, primarily because mercy’s core distinguishing feature is defined by positions of power–one can not be merciful if one has no power to enact a change in condition.

The theme of “mercy”, then, becomes confusing in light of Prufer’s personifications of the dumb plants and animals as yearning for compassion and order, and the portrayals of humans as callous and entrapped in themselves. This personification was difficult for me, but I’ve concluded that this may be Prufer’s way of saying that sometimes mercy comes without conscious thought or overt action (as with the soldiers’ drinking), through the functioning of Nature (the alcohol’s effect, the whisperings of the natural observers), or as the unintended consequences of an act of love (the man’s stringing together of fillings and shells for his wife). It’s hard to accept that these are the only ways mercy can be accomplished, and indeed the bargaining whispers and urgings of the plants and animals claim that there is a more active mercy that can be achieved. But why do none act on it in the poem?

I don’t believe this sort of active mercy is so rare as to be unrepresentable in the poem; rather it didn’t fit the poet’s narrative intent, or by making it elusive the poet teaches us to regret inaction, and anticipate opportunities to act for mercy in the future.

This is why the final stanza begins with “And if it had–”. Curious! This question suggests the entire poem is supposition, not history. This confounded me at first: why “if”? What good does “if” for the meaning of the poem, except disturb the narrative? I think Prufer gives us “if” only to propose to the reader that these things have happened, yes, just as the poet has described them, but it’s not just history; it’s also the future, and we can speculate as to what we might do when faced with either the dead man’s body, or the ruins of the town.

I still have many questions about “On Mercy”, not the least of which is the persistent offering to “marry” the merciful actor, yet the poem is satisfying, and the nagging of these questions will likely keep the poem in my mind after I’ve closed BAP 09, and return my thoughts to not only the theme of the poem, but something of this poet’s craft, too.

P. S. Another mild curiosity, the pluses (+) provide an addition to the stanza breaks, like the whisperings, urging “more” — this rings familiar, as I know Prufer has used somewhat unusual characters in the past to separate stanzas, but I also wonder what other poets, if any, have used specifically the +?

W. S. Merwin‘s “The Silence of the Mine Canaries” is one of my favorite poems from “The Best American Poetry 2009″ so far. I love the mystery that it carries through its elegant, unpunctuated lines, in part because its single stanza form perpetuates the reader’s anticipation. Take a look:

The bats have not flowered
for years now in the crevice
of the tower wall when the long twilight
of spring has seeped across it
as the west light brought back
the colors of parting
the furred buds have not hung there
waking among their dark petals
before sailing out blind along their own echoes
whose high, infallible cadenzas only
they could hear completely and could ride
to take over at that hour
from the swallows gliding
ever since daybreak over the garden
from their nests under the eaves
skimming above the house and the hillside pastures
their voices glittering in their exalted tongue
who knows how long since they have been seen
and the robins have gone from the barn
where the cows spent the summer days
though they stayed long after the cows were gone
the flocks of five kinds of tits have not come again
the blue tits that nested each year
in the wall where their young
could be heard deep in the stones by the window
calling Here Here have not returned
the marks of their feet are still there on the stone
of their doorsill that does not know
what it is missing
the cuckoo has not been heard
again this May
nor for many a year the nightjar
nor the mistle thrush song thrush whitethroat
the blackcap that instructed Mendelssohn
I have seen them
I have stood and listened
I was young
they were singing of youth
not knowing that they were singing for us

There is much to discuss in this poem. I start by commenting on the precise yet inventive descriptions. The first line, “The bats have not flowered” is almost a poem in and of itself. Merwin manages to carry that metaphoric imagery with similar surprising accuracy for the bats: “furred buds”, “dark petals” “sailing blind along their own echoes”. I’ve long suspected that good poetry echoes the images that one’s mind might automatically conjure in response to a word, and articulates those images clearly and succinctly. In this respect a good poem confirms what we subconsciously know. This is a very individual experience, often subjective, still, I found this holding true throughout the poem: with the bats, of course, and especially in description of the swallows:

ever since daybreak over the garden
from their nests under the eaves
skimming above the house and the hillside pastures

I know Merwin generally writes free of punctuation, but this poem in particular is a clear example of how lack of punctuation can support both music and meaning. The run-on rhythm—uninterrupted but by natural caesuras and line breaks that halt one’s breath–stretches one’s attention. And as expected the line breaks makes ambiguous certain key meanings.

…
whose high infallible cadenzas only
they could hear completely and could ride
to take over at that hour
from the swallows gliding
ever since daybreak
…

This ambiguousness helps condense meaning in the words, increasing their efficiency. And yet the ambiguousness can confuse at times. In this case, where the poem is substantiated by the mystery of the missing birds, I conclude the confusion is intentional. So what of the missing birds? We know that “The bats have not flowered / for years now”; “swallows … who knows how long since they have been seen”; other birds are “missing”, “not for many a year”; etc. No explanation is given, but at the end of the poem the narrator declares, “I have seen them”, and for a moment we think the narrator has the answer. But this is a ruse: “I was young”, and the poem proceeds to end without solving the mystery, and even introduces a new conundrum in the closing lines:

they were singing of youth
not knowing that they were singing for us

Who are “us”?

To answer this I return to the title, which seems to explain much, if not everything: “The Silence of the Mine Canaries”. Of course canaries sing most of the time, and their metabolism is such that they were prone to die quickly in the presence of toxic subterranean gases such as methane. Their “silence”, therefore, suggests they are dead. Do we take this literally and presume that the “us” are miners, who work far from the idyllic, pastoral locations where the bats and birds once roamed?

I found that the poem offered me the most unadulterated poetry in a literal interpretation, and I found compelling reasons to think the narrator, and the “us” for whom the birds once sang, are dead miners, perhaps unrecovered from a caved-in mine. The clues for this include the “silence of the Mine Canaries” in the title, the fact that the birds may be gone only for the narrator, and have been gone for some time, and that the poem itself seems out of time. I say this because presenting the poem as one long sentence suggests a simultaneousness. Further, taken as more than the poet’s style, the narrator’s lack of punctuation suggests s/he is free from such inventions, claiming a simplicity not available to most of us–a simplicity and freedom found in death?

More clues that the narrator (and “us”) is literally in a mine begin with Merwin’s first subject: the bat; not a bird, almost song-less in a poem full of songbirds, the bat evokes the image of the cave. the bat is a natural inhabitant of the mine, not the canary, not the implied miners. Indeed, both miners and canaries are quite absent from the poem itself, emphasizing that they are not here except through implication; that they are phantoms.

Not only are the bats and birds missing, they are missing from their homes: bats from the crevice, swallows from their nests, robins from the barn, tits in the wall, etc. The implied miners, too, are gone from their homes, and this accentuates the sense of loss felt by those who might go looking for them. Merwin may have inserted an exact metaphor to this end:

in the wall where their young
could be heard deep in the stones by the window
calling Here Here have not returned

If the “us” are these lost, perhaps dead miners, this analogy to the missing blue tits resonates with the poem’s ending lines, which state that the birds “were singing of youth / not knowing they were singing of us”. Either by death, by aging (natural or accelerated by the mines), or merely by assuming the responsibilities of adults, the miners have lost their youth, have even forgotten their youth, and have not known that the birds, singing of youth, sang for them.

There are more possible interpretations beyond the extensive and literal mystery I’ve supposed here. The poem emphasizes lost youth at the end, and so the silence of the mine canary may be merely a warning against that loss. I find the mine canary is generally an overused cliché in public discourse, but following this thread extends the poem to more figurative interpretations, such as a call for conservationism, both with respect to the collection and use of fossil fuels from the coal mine (canary as a warning against pollution), and as an homage to flying friends driven or killed off—though probably unintentionally—by man.In such an interpretation “us” becomes the true “us”, the “us” of all humanity.

I prefer the mystery of the miners, its ambiguity and mournfulness aligned with the lost beauty of the missing birds.

“Homage to the dead bird I found” by Hoong Wei Long. CC By-NC-SA

P. S.
So precise is the catalog of animals (bats, swallows, robins, 5 kind of tits including blue, cuckoo, nightjar, mistle thrush, song thrush, whitethroat, blackcap) that I’m tempted to research each and tie the poem down to a specific location. I do know that the blue tit is not a bird of the Americas; its habitat is firmly in Europe, Asia, and Africa. The blackcap is also a European bird, and so I’m inclined to think either the poet has purposely set this poem in Europe (perhaps England), or used the birds indiscriminately.

P. P. S.
I do not know how the blackcap “instructed Mendelssohn”, though the allusion conjured Olivier Messiaen, a composer who studied and transcribed bird songs. If you know, please tell me.

Fans of imagist poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) will be interested to see the collection of photo images recently posted as a Flickr collection, courtesy of Yale University’s Beinecke Library: Scrapbook by Hilda Doolittle, a.k.a., H.D.

Thanks to @jimgroom for the heads-up!