Marianne Moore's poems contain the delight in language I have. Sound and meaning competing for primary attention. My fave is "To A Snail," because Moore finds a cross-connecting vector between human motivation and the motive acts of the humble snail. Talk about compression - in this one small poem Moore touches on virtues, principles, values, and a snail's absence of feet. "The curious phenomenon of your occipital horn," I mean, come on - that ought to tickle your frontal lobes as much as mine.
I freely admit to skipping right over the longer works, like "An Octopus," because quite frankly I have a butt-load of poetry to catch up on. Same goes for the other poets' work in this grouping. But I had to make time for "What Are Years?" I am at a curious, transformative time in my life. My compatriots at University are, most of them, less than half my age - vivid reminders of how time flies: "This is mortality, / this is eternity." I chose to read this poem as both an acknowledgement of aging, and a refutation of death as cessation. Given world enough, and time, I might tackle the long poems of Moore and the others. Now, though, my available time demands compression.
I enjoyed H.D. as poet. Not so much as 'prose' writer, when I read "The Gift." She is redeemed in my nasty, brutish, short memory, starting with "Garden." What I discerned from the Norton introduction to her work is brought forth in this poem - implication as a source of poetic energy. There is an implied narrator, whom I see prostrate beneath a shade tree, immobilized by a windless, hot day. "If I could stir / I could break a tree - I could break you." There is immense energy in that cranky lassitude, a resentment of the rose and its beauty, a swift and merciless and transitory hate that we all have felt from time to time. The last stanza is more imploring, asking for the wind to "Cut the heat - / plough through it, / turning it on either side / of your path." The hate for the rose is completely gone, and only relief from the heat is sought. Next-favorite of H.D.'s assembled work is "Fragment Sixty-Eight," which is another one prickly with strong emotions. I am not sure what she meant by "chance of death," for which the narrator is envious. We readers are free to imply whatever makes the most sense to each of us. But I take away the section that starts with line 53 as describing thunderstruck love, which I have experienced. I hope to again, despite the "chance blinding frenzy" that will ensue. And there is "Epitaph," which is so life-affirming even as it describes a wish for remembrance after death. "She died soliciting / illicit fervour" is a grand epitaph to emulate.
Ezra Pound intimidates, by way of standing astride the canon of Modern poetry like the Colossus of Rhodes. His work, his influence on behalf of other great poets and writers, even his latter descent into Fascist ravings render him more human than human. So I must huddle in his shadow, curled around a bite-sized poem I can enjoy, called "The Temperaments." It is base, gossipy (according to the footnote); it opens the sinuses with its frankness, especially by 1917 standards. And it is revealing of one of the basic paradoxes in human behavior - the public face bears no resemblance to the private person. I did not try to hack my way through the thicket of mythological references in "The Cantos." It would be a joyless task for me, an Ironman marathon,with only its cessation the reward.
Pound writes like I think I do, sometimes. I felt that when reading "The Rest." His choice of syllables, his rhythm, is in tune with mine. He is more forceful in what he seeks to convey. But there are resonances. "You of the finer sense, / Broken against false knowledge, / You who can know at first hand, / Hated, shut in, mistrusted:" makes sense to me in the syncopation and syntax. I do not boast, I'm just happy to feel the writerly kinship.
I love Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." Is it okay of I say it's just so cool, so fucking great, inspiring? Well, it is, for its spare construction, for its bold nonconformity, its staggering meter. And a blackbird is so evocative, of mystery and magic and death. "It was evening all afternoon" rocks my world. So does "I was of three minds, / Like a tree / In which there are three blackbirds." These thirteen ways are like Zen koans, or Rumi when he's not in love with a person or a god. This poem shows Stevens extending the Romantic tradition, as the Norton introduction describes it, by expecting us to believe willingly in the fiction. I love any work, written or visual or aural, that asks 'What is the world?' and 'What is imagination?' Wallace answers buy using each to illustrate the other.
There is pleasure, too, in reading Stevens aloud. I read "Domination of Black," but low and quiet because a roommate was nearby. It suited the work, which is kind of like a campfire story. It is lovely to speak this poem.
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