Poetry analysis

analysis of a poem, my thoughts, including analysis links

Exposure – Seamus Heaney – Analysis

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Exposure

It is December in Wicklow:
Alders dripping, birches
Inheriting the last light,
The ash tree cold to look at.
A comet that was lost
Should be visible at sunset,
Those million tons of light
Like a glimmer of haws and rose-hips,
And I sometimes see a falling star.
If I could come on meteorite!
Instead I walk through damp leaves,
Husks, the spent flukes of autumn,
Imagining a hero
On some muddy compound,
His gift like a slingstone
Whirled for the desperate.
How did I end up like this?
I often think of my friends’
Beautiful prismatic counselling
And the anvil brains of some who hate me
As I sit weighing and weighing
My responsible tristia.
For what? For the ear? For the people?
For what is said behind-backs?
Rain comes down through the alders,
Its low conductive voices
Mutter about let-downs and erosions
And yet each drop recalls
The diamond absolutes.
I am neither internee nor informer;
An inner migr, grown long-haired
And thoughtful; a wood-kerne
Escaped from the massacre,
Taking protective colouring
From bole and bark, feeling
Every wind that blows;
Who, blowing up these sparks
For their meagre heat, have missed
The once-in-a-lifetime portent,
The comet’s pulsing rose.

Seamus Heaney (1939 – 2015)

S1 …love the word inheriting as the birch trees take up the evening light … receiving metaphoric money of a golden nature

S2 …a speck of light which weighs a million tons … and to the eye the same size as a rose-hip

S3 …as a poet does SH think himself a falling star?… a metaphoric comparison with his poetry … are the spent flukes of autumn his poetry at a time when he is in descent

S4 … perhaps SH sees his gift as one of much need … how much can words change the actions of people?

S5 …well, he is wondering about how he ended up being a poet in relation to both his friends and the anvil brains of those who hate him suggest a strong distaste

S6 …you can become disillusioned … the reception you receive from others … is it worth it … and the reference is to Ovid – sorrow set of poems … you don’t hear what people really think about your work … and does it matter

S7 …rain drops through the leaves and branches have a voice … and yet behind their voice there is a mutter … the cause of erosion … but each drop is a diamond in its own right …

here is a poetic thought …each drop a poem perhaps … but when they are all put together they can invoke a threat … if people are unprepared to take notice … just as those that do not listen to the weather report may find themselves caught in a flood of water … and at the end of art there is peace

S8 …SH has become longhaired and thoughtful …and he likens himself to an Irish outlaw … see the text the definition of “wood-kern” below

S9 …SH has removed himself from Northern Ireland and all the troubles to Wicklow … and yet he still carries a connection and feels the pain … and he hasn’t taken sides

S10 … this is a lament about his poetry … regarding his work as an under-achievement … a meagre heat  … the once in a lifetime chance thwarted … the comet inspiration … if he had stayed in the North then his poetic voice might have been much stronger in adressing the Catholic-Protestant fighting … a direct voice rather than being removed

“Migr” is a root word, commonly found in English vocabulary, that signifies the concept of movement or relocation. It originates from the Latin word “migrare,” which means “to move from one place to another”. Understanding this root can help decipher the meaning of various related words.

“Wood-kern” or “woodkern” refers to an Irish outlaw or bandit who operated in the forests or wild areas of Ireland, particularly during the period of English colonization. They were often native Irish displaced by the Anglo-Norman invasion or subsequent plantations. The term is a combination of “wood” and “kern,” the latter being a term for a type of light infantry soldier in Gaelic Ireland.

And on Exposure – when you are a poet you are exposed … and if you are a famous poet in the eye of the populace … or should I say in the ear … then you have to come to terms with that exposure … and if you are falling from expectations of yourself, and others, there is an adjustment needed on how to cope with such circumstances.

Seamus Heaney – Wikipedia

The spiritual Struggle of Tennyson

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Life is a journey. Life is a spiritual journey. Life is eternal.

Tennyson’s exposure to scientific thought, philosophy, and personal tragedies (especially the death of his close friend Arthur Hallam) caused him to question and wrestle with the Christian doctrine of his day.

Tennyson’s most famous long poem, In Memoriam A.H.H., is a profound meditation on grief, love, and the struggle between faith and doubt. He tries to come to terms with the apparent cruelty of nature and the loss of his friend with a hope in divine purpose and immortality.

He never outright rejected Christianity, but his belief was not simplistic or uncritical. He was spiritually searching, determining for himself his own acceptance of faith and the understanding to the purpose of life.

These lines from In Memoriam reflect his spiritual struggle:

“There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.”

Indicating the importance of working our own understanding of life, without blighly following the religious dictates of others.

And Canto 54 is rich with spiritual questioning. There is a cautious hope in divine purpose. Here are the lines:

Oh, yet we trust that somehow good
         Will be the final end 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.

So runs my dream: but what am I?
         An infant crying in the night:
         An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.

Tennyson hopes that suffering and evil (“ill”) will somehow serve a higher good. He believes — or wants to believe — that life is purposeful, not random (“nothing walks with aimless feet”). He confesses human ignorance — “we know not anything” — yet he still clings to trust in a benevolent divine order.

Toward the end of his life Tennyson identified more openly with a broader Christian theism. On his deathbed, he recited passages from the Bible, indicating a retained comfort in Anglican rites and language. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, with full Anglican rites.

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 – 1892)
Alfred Lord Tennyson on Wikipedia

Tennyson and “The Muses”

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Tennyson’s most celebrated work is ‘In Memoriam’ and in this work he talks about the ‘the Muses’.

The muses, poetry, the arts – all that made life beautiful here, and which we hope will pass with us beyond the grave.

Originally, muse referred to the Greek goddesses of music, poetry, and the arts. These goddesses, collectively known as the Muses, were believed to inspire poets and musicians.

This was in relation to a dream he had when he moved away from the rectory at Somersby in May 1837 to live at Beech Hill House, Epping.

The dream, which took place the night before the move, is recorded in section CIII of the poem. He seems to be living in a hall, and maidens with me singing of what is wise and good and graceful. In the centre of the hall stands a statue and to which they sing and which, though veiled, is recognised by Tennyson. The statue is thought to represent Arthur Hallam. His great lost love from student days.

The shape of him I loved, and love
For ever.

A dove brings in a summons from the sea. The maidens weep and wail when they realise he must go, and lead him down to a little boat moored at the side of the river below. They all get into the boat and as they glide down the river, the maidens become even more splendid, while he grows in stature, too, as the maidens continue to sing of that great race that is to be.

 As they draw out to sea, they approach the shinning sides of a great ship:

The man we loved was there on deck,
      But thrice as large as man he bent
      To greet us. Up the side I went,
And fell in silence on his neck;

Whereat those maidens with one mind
      Bewail'd their lot; I did them wrong:
      "We served thee here," they said, "so long,
And wilt thou leave us now behind?"
So rapt I was, they could not win
      An answer from my lips, but he
      Replying, "Enter likewise ye
And go with us:" they enter'd in.
And while the wind began to sweep
      A music out of sheet and shroud,
      We steer'd her toward a crimson cloud
That landlike slept along the deep.

Tennyson (1809 – 1892)
The last stanzas from section CIII

As we can see from these lines the Muse, the metaphorical maidens, went with him on his move to Beech Hill House. As well as the memmory connection with Arthur Hallam.

Tennyson later said of the dream:
I seemed to see, as it were, the spirit of the place, and the spirit of my past poetry, rise and wave me farewell.

This vision deeply moved him and contributed to his belief that Somersby was a spiritual wellspring for his poetry. A place where his creativity flourished. It also exemplifies the Romantic ideal of inspiration as something external and almost divine.

The dream marked the end of an era for Tennyson — the end of his youth and his intimate connection with the pastoral, poetic world of Somersby. It also reflects a kind of melancholy and reverence for the creative past.

This dream is often cited in biographies and literary studies because of its poetic resonance and its connection to his self-conception as a poet and to his muse.

 

September Day – Sara Teasdale

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September Day
Pont De Neuilly

The Seine flows out of the mist
and into the mist again;
The trees lean over the water,
The small leaves fall like rain.

The leaves fall patiently,
Nothing remembers or grieves;
The river takes to the sea
The yellow drift of the leaves.

Milky and cold is the air,
The leaves float with the stream,
The river comes out of a sleep
And goes away in a dream.

Sara Teasdale (1884 – 1933)

It is autumn in Australia, so I have chosen this autumn poem from the northern hemisphere. Poetry rapport is more likely if the images portrayed by words can generate mind images in the reader by association. Mists do occur in Canberra typically in June and of course close to water. I remember one year when we had a week of dull skies and frequent mists settling around Lake Burley Griffin. An unusual week for the sun was like an old, defaced coin giving little value to the day. I must say that as I type this we are having wonderful full blue skies and a bounty of colours from the abundance of deciduous trees planted around the Capital, including many oak trees planted from the time Canberra was first established.

Sara Teasdale’s work, an American poet, has been characterized by its simplicity and clarity, and her use of classical forms.  She was very adept at describing the natural scene in this fashion.  Presumably, as a visitor she had time to watch the early morning Seine at Pont De Neuilly as it flowed out of the mist before disappearing again.

In the second stanza we can envisage a still morning with the leaves taking their time to fall to the water as she watches. She indirectly personifies the leaves to be without thought living in the moment as nature happens. This contrasts with the way people spend time reflecting and regretting, fogging their appreciation. In this regard, The Orange Tree poem by John Shaw Neilsen comes to mind The Orange Tree – John Shaw Neilsen – Analysis | my word in your ear.

In the last stanza the river is born in the morning and dies in the morning, so to speak. Again, we can relate to human existence. Her poetry is known to flow a deeper meaning; and poets are conditioned to look below the surface in metaphorical fashion.

For those in the Northern Hemisphere, enjoy the approach to summer. I hope some sun filled days start to engender activity.

Sara Teasdale on Wikipedia

The Raincoat – Ada Limón – Analysis

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To become familiar with the work of Ada Limón as a starting point I chose a poem where there was some rapport. Ada Limón created this poem based on personal experience reflecting back later in life.

The Raincoat

When the doctor suggested surgery
and a brace for all my youngest years,
my parents scrambled to take me
to massage therapy, deep tissue work,
osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine 
unspooled a bit, I could breathe again,
and move more in a body unclouded
by pain. My mom would tell me to sing
songs to her the whole forty-five-minute
drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty-
five minutes back from physical therapy.
She’d say that even my voice sounded unfettered
by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang,
because I thought she liked it. I never
asked her what she gave up to drive me,
or how her day was before this chore. Today,
at her age, I was driving myself home from yet
another spine appointment, singing along
to some maudlin but solid song on the radio,
and I saw a mom take her raincoat off
and give it to her young daughter when
a storm took over the afternoon. My god,
I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her
raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel
that I never got wet.

Ada Limón (1976 -

Copyright Credit: ALimón, "The Raincoat " from The Carrying.  Copyright © 2018 by Ada Limon.  Reprinted by permission of Milkweed Editions.
Source: The Carrying (Milkweed Editions, 2018)

The title, when a specific object is chosen like the raincoat; this must have significance in relation to the poem. In this poem it was in relation to the way the coat was being used as she watched a mother take care of a child. A moment observed in daily life has prompted thought to a personal connection. And this connection is elaborated in Ada Limón’s reflection on her own childhood with her mother to form the basis of the poem.

The text down to the full stop in line 8 gives details of the corrective course for a crooked spine. A condition known as scoliosis which involved continual travel over her childhood years which gradually eased the pain and assisted breathing.

The next lines to the full stop in line 12 detail the 45 minute travel journey with her mother to attend the medical sessions. Her mother asks her to sing while they travel and she responds. It is not necessary to know that the location is Middle Two Rock Road which happens to be in California but this gives actuality to her own personal life as a child.

In the next sentence her mother declares that her singing is unfettered; independent of her spine condition. AL thought she was doing this purely to satisfy her mother. She never thought of any inquiry to the sacrifice her mother was making all the time in facilitating the journeys. Her mother may very well have suggested the singing to detract from the scoliosis and show what she could achieve independent of her daughter’s chronic medical burden.

Then years later Ada Limón is doing the exact same thing at her Mother’s age; driving back from another medical appointment on her spine. At the same time doing as she did before as a child; singing away. The sight of a mother in the rain who uses her own raincoat to protect her daughter from a storm prompts thoughts on the sacrifice her mother made in taking her to medical sessions. And for the first time she thinks of the cost to her mother in giving her such support. She then extends this lack of recognition to her whole life – my whole life I’ve been under her raincoat giving; for all that her mother has done to support her through the years.

A poem created by giving personal thought on observing the the day-to-day life in the street. It shows how something quite simple can act as a trigger in creating a poem. And as a child we are often quite oblivious to the cost of the support given by parents. Later in life that support is often reciprocated as our parents age. Whether there is a balancing act is another matter.

Ada Limón is the current poet laureate in the United States. Ada Limón details on Wikipedia

Song for a Summer’s Day – Sylvia Plath

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This is a different Sylvia Plath poem from many poems that people usually associate with her name. This poem was written in the summer of 1956 before her pending marriage to Ted Hughes. The scene is Cambridge when at the University and exploring the countryside with Ted Hughes.

Song for a Summer's Day

Through fen and farmland walking
With my own country love
I saw slow flocked cows move
White hulks on their day's cruising;
Sweet grass sprang for their grazing.

The air was bright for looking:
Most far in blue, aloft,
Clouds steered a burnished drift;
Larks' nip and tuck arising
Came in for my love's praising.

Sheen of the noon sun striking
Took my heart as if
It were a green-tipped leaf
Kindled by my love's pleasing
Into an ardent blazing.

And so, together, talking,
Through Sunday's honey-air
We walked (and still walk there —-
Out of the sun's bruising)
Till the night mists came rising.

Sylvia Plath composed the summer of 1956
(1932 - 1963)

There is a lot of action taking place in the repetitive use of the doing words such as walking, cruising, and praising. Especially talking with her country love. Ted Hughes had a strong affinity for the countryside and the animal life therein. In fact, SP wrote an Ode to Ted Hughes on this aspect of his nature at a similar time as this poem. And in this poem TH comments on the distinct movement of larks as they nip and tuck.

SP likens her heart to a green-tipped leaf in the blaze of her mid-day talk with TH. She is in love and her love flows to all around her as she walks. And Sunday was always a more sacred day in 1956. I do like the honey-air of a Sunday in relaxed recreation. The sweet coloured contented fellowship of sharing the beauty of summer sunshine with TH.

The last three lines indicate reflection and a recall of her walk with TH; indicative of her love still very much evident – We walked (and still walk there —- Out of the sun’s bruising)

The last line could be a little prophetic – Till the night mists came rising.

In your pink wool knitted dress – Marriage Day Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath

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Ted Hughes in his reflective poem In your pink wool knitted dress describes the day of his marriage to Sylvia Plath on 16th June 1956; Bloomsday. The poem appears in Birthday Letters which was a surprise poetry collection released only months before Hughes’s death in 1998. The Birthday Letters collection gives his poetic voice on his life with Sylvia Plath. The collection won multiple awards. Here is the poem –

In your pink wool knitted dress

Before anything had smudged anything
You stood at the altar. Bloomsday.

Rain - so that a just-bought umbrella
Was the only furnishing about me
Newer than three years inured.
My tie - sole, drab, veteran RAF black -
Was the used-up symbol of a tie.
My chord jacket - thrice-dyed black, exhausted,
Just hanging on to itself.

I was a post-war, utility son-in-law!
Not quite the Frog-Prince. Maybe the Swineherd
Stealing this daughter's pedigree dreams
From under her watchtowered searchlit future.

No ceremony could conscript me
Out of my uniform. I wore my whole wardrobe -
Except for the odd, spare, identical item.
My wedding, like Nature, wanted to hide.
However, - if we were going to be married
It had better be Westminster Abbey. Why not?
The Dean told us why not. That is how
I learned that I had a Parish Church.
St George of the Chimney Sweeps.

So we squeezed into marriage finally.
Your mother, brave even in this
US Foreign Affairs gamble.
Acted all bridesmaids and all guests,
Even - magnanimity - represented
My family
Who had heard nothing about it.
I had invited only their ancestors.
I had not even confided my theft of you
To a closest friend. 

For best man - my squire
To hold the meanwhile rings -
We requisitioned the sexton. Twist the outrage:
He was packing children into a bus,
Taking them to the Zoo - in that downpour!
All the prison animals had to be patient
While we married.

You were transfigured.
So slender and new and naked,
A nodding spray of wet lilac.
You shook, you sobbed with joy, you were ocean depth
Brimming with God.
You said you saw the heavens open
And show riches, ready to drop upon us.
Levitated beside you, I stood subjected
To a strange tense: the spellbound future.

In that echo-gaunt, weekday chancel I see you 
Wrestling to contain your flames 
In your pink wool knitted dress 
And in your eye-pupils – great cut jewels 
Jostling their tear-flames, truly like big jewels 
Shaken in a dice-cup and held up to me.

Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998) from Birthday Letters

The title is based on the dress Sylvia wore at her wedding. She didn’t have a dress organised and her mother, who had arrived from the States, had bought this for herself and ended up giving it to Sylvia to wear.

S1 … well, there was certainly some smudging going on in their relationship as the years unfolded. TH and SP chose Bloomsday because of their budding poetic interest. Bloomsday being the day associated with the 1992 James Joyce novel Ulysses based on the one day Thursday 16 June 1904.

S2 … TH had old clothing from his RAF days … a little tattered … perhaps appropriate not to be concerned with attire … like a true bohemian poet.

S3 … Utility was a key term after the war, something fit for purpose. I think Sylvia was stronger in the desire for marriage. It is interesting that TH identifies with the Swineherd. In Homer’s Odyssey, the swineherd, named Eumaeus, is a loyal servant of Odysseus. Much later in their marriage that loyalty was sorely tested. He may have felt he was stealing Sylvia from family in America. Sylvia had informed her brother Warren about the marriage who was in France at the time.

S4 … It was wishful to try for Westminster Abbey so TH was duly told he had to use his parish church. An interesting name St George of the Chimney sweeps. Apparently the Church was known for giving Christmas dinners to Chimney sweeps from all over London.

S5 … They had such difficulty in making it happen with just Sylvia, Ted and Sylvia’s mother the only family to attend. Squeezing into marriage a very appropriate verb. TH’s family were magnaminous or so it seems when TH reports after the actual event. I don’t think TH’s sister Carol had a particular liking for Sylvia.

S6 … He didn’t have a bestman organised and had to requisition the sexton who had to holdup taking children on an outing to the Zoo. Presumably all the children had to wait on the bus while the sexton performed the bestman duties inside the church. The prison animals could have a double interpretation. Both children and animals had to wait.

S7 … We finally get to that crucial moment in the ceremony likened to the beauty of SP’s slender naked body in a transfiguration. Appropriate metaphor given the church setting. Sylvia levitating God like with all heaven before her in total happiness. TH thinking of the future. The strange tense of a spellbound future with Sylvia. It was a very tense future. TH unaware that he had experienced an extreme SP emotional state akin to a bi-polar high. This association reflected appropriatley by TH’s dramatic choice of words in this stanza..

S8 … TH an emotional bystander to Sylvia in her euphoric state as Sylvia wrestles to contain her happiness. Her eyes dazzled like clear cut tear flamed jewels held up for Ted in the shaken dice thrown future.

The Ruined Maid – Thomas Hardy – accepting subservience

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After the previous post on marriage by Sylvia Plath the Thomas Hardy poem ‘The Ruined Maid‘ comes to mind. It is an early poem by Hardy written over hundred years before Plath. It clearly defines the plight of being a young girl in the eighteen-sixties. A sarcastic take on the joy of being ruined. And how to be one-up on a friend who has remained unruined.

Below is the text from the Thomas Hardy Society Website which enhances the Dorset dialect –
Microsoft Word – 5 The Ruined Maid.docx

The voices of the two maids are contrasted. The last line of each stanza are the polished arrogance of the newly refined maid; now a lady going about town in style. The last line by the ruined maid is very interesting those last two words a’int ruined. If she was truly refined in speech she won’t use the word a’int, so she is communicating back to her friend in the local vernacular. So she is not completely ruined perhaps as she reverts to her old self.

The Ruined Maid
‘O ’Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
And whence such fair garments, such prosper-ity?’ –
‘O didn’t you know I’d been ruined?’ said she. –
‘You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
And now you’ve gay bracelets and bright feathers three!’ –
‘Yes: that’s how we dress when we’re ruined,’ said she. –
‘At home in the barton you said “thee” and “thou”,
And “thik oon”, and “theäs oon”, and “t’other”; but now
Your talking quite fits ’ee for high compa-ny!’ –
‘Some polish is gained with one’s ruin,’ said she.

ruined – morally ruined, a prostitute or a kept woman
barton – farmyard
this one, that one, the other –

‘Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak
But now I’m bewitched by your delicate cheek,
And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!’ –
‘We never do work when we’re ruined,’ said she. –
‘You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,
And you’d sigh, and you’d sock; but at present you seem
To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!’ –
‘True. One’s pretty lively when ruined,’ said she. –
‘I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!’ –
‘My dear – a raw country girl, such as you be,
Cannot quite expect that. You ain’t ruined,’ said she.

Westbourne Park Villas, 1866

digging up docks (weeds) with a narrow spade called a spud
hag-ridden – a nightmare
sock – to sigh loudly (Dor dialect)
raw – inexperienced, naive

Thomas Hardy (1840 – 1928)