Poetry, Hopkins, Pitch, Honesty and Trust

High, Pretty, Alone in the Wind

    

    In Hopkins’ “terrible sonnets,” here is the short passage I find most wrenching and representative (from “No worst there is none”): 

    O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall

    Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap

May who ne'er hung there.

However, as a whole poem, I prefer “Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend.” Its final three lines are not for sissies either:

   

    Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum; verumtamen
justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum prosperatur? &c.

    Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend

    With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.

    Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must

    Disappointment all I endeavour end?

    Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,

    How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost

    Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust

    Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,

    Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes

    Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again

    With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes

    Them; birds build – but not I build; no, but strain,

    Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.

    Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.

The post that will follow next time got away from me in length and tone (too formal, not much fun). But to avoid being the squirrel halfway across the road, I’m going to post it later, in two parts.

    So in a more casual vein, appropriate for a blog, I want to continue the discussion about poetry (Roethke, Hopkins, and now T.S. Eliot) in a way that amounts to looking at honesty and trust in general. One reason more people should look more often at poetry is that it asks us to think more carefully about spoken experiences, our own and those of others, including how honest and trustworthy we or other speakers are being. 

How Clear Is the Focus?

When someone—lover, boss, friend, government, for example—offers excited or dire statements, how much attention has that speaker earned? How do we know how involved to become?

One answer is to respond to those people as we’d respond to a poem. We listen carefully to the language being uttered. What do the words mean, at the literal, denotative as well as the emotional, connotative levels? In what tone or mood are they offered, and is that appropriate to the situation? 

    Are we given enough specifics to make our own judgments? Is the speaker being honest and accurate in the way he presents and evaluates information? Too emotional? Or maybe not emotional enough? Too self-protected in irony, long-windedness, lame humor, and other defenses? And of course, what’s the other side of the story?

How Heavy's the Load?

Although we are often fooled, we keep on making such human decisions almost every day in response to things we hear, whether in person or through the media. Very few good responses are made in a True-False or Multiple Choice mode. We look at motive, context, tone, and a host of other variables in sizing up why our friend wants to go out with that person or make that comment to the boss or be defeated by that situation. 

    Those are the very kinds of considerations we need in approaching poetry. Hear the poet or his speaker as a friend or acquaintance who is, presumably, saying something he considers urgent, or at least important enough to be worth our time. Is it conveyed in the right kind of detail. Why is he telling me that? Is it just some hysteria or some fancy dance? How much of it do I believe, or care about, or think I should respond to?

How Loud Is the Flap?

 So when someone (like me) gets long-winded, obsessed, overblown, or tediously technical about poetry or some other subject, maybe he's just to trying to make sense of his conversation with a poet who was worked up about something.

    Next time, onward with Hopkins and Eliot.

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