Andrea Siso – Page 2

“Late Ghazal” by Adrienne Rich

Andrea Siso

Footsole to scalp alive facing the window’s black mirror.
First rains of the winter morning’s smallest hour.

Go back to the ghazal then what will you do there?
Life always pulsed harder than the lines.

Do you remember the strands that ran from eye to eye?
The tongue that reached everywhere, speaking all the parts?

Everything there was cast in an image of desire.
The imagination’s cry is a sexual cry.

I took my body anyplace with me.
In the thickets of abstraction my skin ran with blood.

Life was always stronger . . . the critics couldn’t get it.
Memory says the music always ran ahead of the words.

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In this poem, Adrienne Rich conveys the irreconcilable gap that exists between experience and articulation. Poetry, therefore, has the inherent inability to stand as a comprehensive evocation of the poet’s life, as “life [will] always [pulse] harder than the lines.” Yet, the poet will inevitably “go back” through the “thickets of abstraction” to grasp life’s “music” in “words,” which serve as afterthoughts to experience. Rich therefore attempts to demonstrate that her poetry cannot be equated to a direct representation of herself, as “critics” have incorrectly surmised.

The ghazal is a strict and ancient poetic form generally used to evoke the pain of separation. In this case, the separation is that which exists between poetry and a poet, or between life and words. This is emphasized by the caesuras, or pauses, within the second and third verses of the poem. These blank spaces delineate the nature of creating poetry as a process of first listening to life’s “music,” and then collecting the “words” to evoke it. Additionally, Rich does not adhere to the ghazal’s true structure—a further rejection of poetry as the direct outlet of life.

Adrienne Rich was a poet who never shied away from expressing controversial views in her art. She thus served as one of the most prominent writers of the second half of the twentieth century, resonantly voicing social and political issues through her poetry. Though she recently passed, Rich will continue to propagate her influence to generations of writers to come.

“Green” by D.H. Lawrence

Andrea Siso

The dawn was apple-green,
The sky was green wine held up in the sun,
The moon was a golden petal between.

She opened her eyes, and green
They shone, clear like flowers undone
For the first time, now for the first time seen.

(1917, The New Poetry: An Anthology)

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In “Green,” Lawrence conveys a woman’s loss of innocence, or virginity. As emphasized by its title, the central motif of this poem is the color green, which symbolizes the woman’s initial innocence and naiveté. The opening images Lawrence creates convey an ingénue’s perspective of her surroundings. The dawn is “apple-green,” the sky is “green wine held up in the sun,” and the moon is a “golden petal.” Nature gains a wondrous, fantastical quality through virginal green lenses.

In the second stanza, this woman is able to “[open] her eyes,” that become “clear like flowers undone.” In other words she is able to, “for the first time,” gain clarity in focus, as she has just been deflowered.

Lawrence therefore describes the loss of innocence as a positive gain, contrary to the contemporary societal mores he faced. According to this poem, experiencing true love or true passion can serve as a vehicle of clarity and truth; one can finally see the world, not through a shaded lens, but through an unobstructed vision of reality.

D.H. Lawrence was a controversial English writer, recognized for his significant contribution to the Modernist literary movement. Though his literary works went largely unappreciated during his lifetime, he has come to be valued as a visionary thinker and an imaginative writer.

“Into My Own” by Robert Frost

Andrea Siso

One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.

I should not be withheld but that some day
Into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.

I do not see why I should e’er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.

They would not find me changed from him they knew–
Only more sure of all I thought was true.

(1915, A Boy’s Will)

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There is irony in the dilemma of the adolescent; he is at the cusp of total independence yet is caught by the salient need for family as a foundation to stand upon. Frost exploits this ordeal in “Into My Own,” as he uses an adolescent speaker to convey the struggle of overcoming childhood and reaching adulthood. These conflicting states create a vacuum of identity, compelling the speaker to seek to come “into [his] own,” and thus develop self-recognition. This vacuum is emphasized by Frost’s use of outmoded language such as “’twere” and “e’er,” as it shows a young poet still in the shadow of British poetry and not yet confident in the American idiom. He has not yet come “into [his] own” voice.

Frost’s poem is in the format of a sonnet. This structurally demonstrates the speaker’s wish to retain his core self while cementing his beliefs, as the sonnet is a classic poetic form that retains its organization while altering its significance with whatever language is employed. Just as this alteration would not break from sonnet format, the speaker’s foray into independence would not incite an utter break from his previous self; instead, it would allow him to become a magnified version of who he had been, as evidenced in the final couplet of the poem, “They would not find me changed from him they knew–/Only more sure of all I thought was true.” The speaker would be able to transcend to adulthood as a man who has cemented his ideals and completely knows himself.

Robert Frost was a four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet. He frequently utilized rural scenery as a significant element in his poetry, demonstrating how soulful interaction with the natural world can breed intellectual depth.

“Come My Cantilations” by Ezra Pound

Andrea Siso

Come my cantilations,
Let us dump our hatreds into one bunch and be done with them,
Hot sun, clear water, fresh wind,
Let me be free of pavements,
Let me be free of printers.
Let come beautiful people
Wearing raw silk of good colour,
Let come graceful speakers,
Let come the ready of wit,
Let come the gay of manner, the insolent and the exulting.
We speak of burnished lakes,
Of dry air, as clear as metal.

(Originally published in Blast magazine, 1914)

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The dissatisfaction of a restless wanderer is an itch or a push that may remain dormant for a while, and thus go unnoticed and unfulfilled. Yet, ultimately, the wanderer’s urge to leave and explore reawakens, impelling his flight. In “Come My Cantilations,” Pound communicates his discontent with village life—its “[h]ot sun, clear water, [and] fresh wind,” and its “pavements” and “printers.” The positive nature of the things the poet is tired of emphasizes the degree of his restlessness. He would rather have the “dry air” of a city than the “fresh wind” of the village, and he would prefer the “burnished lakes” of urban pollution to the “clear water” of the countryside. By leaving this “bunch” of “hatreds” behind, the poet believes he would be rid of them permanently; he seeks a tabula rasa of sorts—a new location for a fresh perspective. And perhaps the final attainment of total satisfaction.

A “cantilation” is a ritual chanting. As an established wanderer, Pound’s unrest has become ritual, and is manifested by his chants that convey what he seeks. Biographically, Pound lived for stretches of time in America, London, Paris, and Italy. He left each place with a sense of disappointment, as either it or he (or even both) did not fulfill his expectations. He pushed to find somewhere he would be able to flourish.

Ezra Pound was born in Idaho in 1885, and died in Venice in 1972. He was a key figure in the early modernist poetry movement, as well as the central founder of the Imagism movement, which advocated the use of precise imagery and sharp language. As an editor for several London literary magazines, Pound aided in the discovery of such writers as T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, and Ernest Hemingway.

“Metaphors” by Sylvia Plath

Andrea Siso

I’m a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising.
Money’s new-minted in this fat purse.
I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I’ve eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there’s no getting off.

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The unsettling nature of “Metaphors” (The Colossus, William Heinemann Limited, 1960)arises from the dichotomy of Plath’s tone and the images she chooses to convey her mentality. Initially, she playfully compares her pregnant state to an “elephant,” a “house,” a ripening “melon,” and a “yeasty” loaf of bread. However, starting with the sixth line, it becomes clear that beneath these pithy musings run the undercurrents of anxiety. Plath begins to see herself merely as a “means”—almost an incubator, with no other worth besides that of birthing offspring. This culminates with the last line, where she realizes that she is forever changed, irrevocably. Her pregnancy was only the beginning of the train-ride; she must now become a mother.

Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer. She was the first poet to receive a Pulitzer Prize posthumously for her Collected Poems (Harper & Row, 1982) in 1982.