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| Flicker, July 2011 |
Here is my latest response (tweaked a little) to the
thoughtful visitor comments here after my last post (March 22), :
Kitty, thanks, and I
think you hit on one of the biggest, most timeless questions about art. I
suspect most people think (rightly) that good art must be somewhat
realistic—that is, willing to look ugly truths in the eye—while being uplifting
is optional. But who wants to read a page of details belaboring the rather
obvious thought that life is hell? Never mind 400 pages . . .
Also, aren't the hellish things so easy to spot that it's like shooting fish in a barrel? How much insight is required to conclude that war is unpleasant? (Yet we seem to enjoy war, going back, as we do, for seconds and hundredths . . .).
Also, in most parts of the world, at most points in history, aren't the uplifting (including comic) things almost as evident as the dark stuff? So I doubt I'm ever satisfied with art that doesn't see both (or all) sides.
Of course there's also the fact that darker art, if it's beautifully constructed, takes steps toward redeeming even the ugliest subject matter. That's a big part of my reasoning when I ask poetry to offer gifts along the way, such as skillful, inventive phrasing and compelling imagery. A decent poem offers those, no matter how unoriginally grim its outlook.
Also, aren't the hellish things so easy to spot that it's like shooting fish in a barrel? How much insight is required to conclude that war is unpleasant? (Yet we seem to enjoy war, going back, as we do, for seconds and hundredths . . .).
Also, in most parts of the world, at most points in history, aren't the uplifting (including comic) things almost as evident as the dark stuff? So I doubt I'm ever satisfied with art that doesn't see both (or all) sides.
Of course there's also the fact that darker art, if it's beautifully constructed, takes steps toward redeeming even the ugliest subject matter. That's a big part of my reasoning when I ask poetry to offer gifts along the way, such as skillful, inventive phrasing and compelling imagery. A decent poem offers those, no matter how unoriginally grim its outlook.
I bring all that up because it connects to what I’ve been
intending to say about the way Emily Dickinson and Deborah Digges connected in
my mind a few weeks ago, regarding birds.
First, let me repeat a line from Robert Frost’s “The Road
Not Taken,” a line that has seemed more and more important to me lately (I
think it has to do with aging, along with the internet). Having chosen the second path
considered at a fork in the road, Frost says:
I
doubted if I should ever come back.
(“The
Road Not Taken,” 13-15)
“How way leads on to way” is the part that charms and haunts
me these days. As if to prove
Frost right, some roaming on the internet steered me to re-reading a famous Dickinson
poem about birds:
A
Bird came down the Walk (328) by Emily Dickinson
A
Bird came down the Walk—
He
did not know I saw—
He
bit an Angleworm in halves
And
ate the fellow, raw,
And
then he drank a Dew
From
a convenient Grass—
And
then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To
let a Beetle pass—
He
glanced with rapid eyes
That
hurried all around—
They
looked like frightened Beads, I thought—
He
stirred his Velvet Head
Like
one in danger, Cautious,
I
offered him a Crumb
And
he unrolled his feathers
And
rowed him softer home—
Than
Oars divide the Ocean,
Too
silver for a seam—
Or
Butterflies, off Banks of Noon
Leap,
plashless as they swim.
I thought once again about the way I used to hear the words,
“Emily Dickinson” as “hickory dickory dock.” Not to mention, “Lah dee dah dee
bum.”
I think other English majors—especially the cool ones, if there were any—thought, “Quaint little New Englander popping perky rhymed ditties in the attic.” Or later as a young teacher, I wondered, “How am I going to sell Dickinson as a skillful, complex, deep, disturbing, mind-expanding poet students should care about?” Or, “Emily Dickinson: one of the many hip, cool, money poets acting like an LSD drop, she rode a Harley with Cummings, Bukowski, and Ferlinghetti. Well, maybe not." How was I going to argue she wasn’t the founding editor of saccharine Hallmark greeting cards?”
I think other English majors—especially the cool ones, if there were any—thought, “Quaint little New Englander popping perky rhymed ditties in the attic.” Or later as a young teacher, I wondered, “How am I going to sell Dickinson as a skillful, complex, deep, disturbing, mind-expanding poet students should care about?” Or, “Emily Dickinson: one of the many hip, cool, money poets acting like an LSD drop, she rode a Harley with Cummings, Bukowski, and Ferlinghetti. Well, maybe not." How was I going to argue she wasn’t the founding editor of saccharine Hallmark greeting cards?”
I don’t know when I began to hear E.D.’s toughness, but it
was embarrassingly late in the game. So, with way leading on to way, when I
once again stumbled onto “A Bird Came Down the Walk,” I found both my old problem
with E.D. and my newer sense of her as a tough ol’ bird who embraced both the darkness
and the bliss of it all—and one who offered gifts in practically every stanza,
if not every line.
In “A Bird came down the Walk,” we get two opening lines
that sound the way all of E.D. sounded to me at age 20. But in Line 3, the
genteel little spinster becomes something of an amused, accurate, and honest scientist in calmly observing
Nature’s food chain in action. In the first particular she offers about the
bird, he’s complacently slaughtering a fellow being, and the narrator sounds
equally complacent, if not smiling just a little. She muses, "He didn't pause to cook the fellow."
After that, the poem's gifts begin to promote a more Victorian and
gentle menagerie. The predator-bird of Lines 3-4 now steps aside, “To let a Beetle pass.” In
stanzas 3 and 4, the bird seems frightened, which maintains some tension within
the overall sweetness of the poem. Niceness, though, is the dominant impression, and
in the conclusion, we move to the even gentler butterfly. In fact, maybe the butterfly
has emerged from the worm of Lines 3-4, as if to suggest that dead worms, even those eaten by “Velvet Head”-ed birds, end up fluttering about beautifully in
Caterpillar Heaven.
But for me, that opening act of animal butchery creates a
realism that just will not go away, no matter how sweet the rest of the poem
becomes. The fact that the hungry hunter also becomes “Cautious,” and probably
“frightened,” further undercuts any complacent silkiness we might think we’ve
heard in the poem.
Nature is gorgeous. Nature is a cruel platform full of mass murder. Which is true? If we’re going to allow ourselves such
personification of Nature at all (and as long as we don't stop there, I think we must; it's a human effort to connect), surely we can only
conclude that Nature is both beautiful and savage—and a lot more.
*A Bird came down the Walk (328) by Emily DickinsonA Bird came down the Walk—He did not know I saw—He bit an Angleworm in halvesAnd ate the fellow, raw,And then he drank a DewFrom a convenient Grass—And then hopped sidewise to the WallTo let a Beetle pass—He glanced with rapid eyesThat hurried all around—They looked like frightened Beads, I thought—He stirred his Velvet HeadLike one in danger, Cautious,I offered him a CrumbAnd he unrolled his feathersAnd rowed him softer home—Than Oars divide the Ocean,Too silver for a seam—Or Butterflies, off Banks of NoonLeap, plashless as they swim.
