tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883979841111173610.post3464364795610021823..comments2024-02-05T00:16:13.698-05:00Comments on Banjo52: "Lying in a Hammock at William Duffys Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota" by James WrightBanjo52http://www.blogger.com/profile/04342397136888422440noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883979841111173610.post-13353140090187350662011-10-24T17:36:49.930-04:002011-10-24T17:36:49.930-04:00Somewords, well said, esp. "blazing poop"...Somewords, well said, esp. "blazing poop" and "unrequited geography." Thanks.Banjo52https://www.blogger.com/profile/04342397136888422440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883979841111173610.post-83678678624449688582011-10-22T15:47:27.131-04:002011-10-22T15:47:27.131-04:00Great, great poem. Against all the rules, I tend ...Great, great poem. Against all the rules, I tend to place James Wright's narrators as Ohio natives. In this poem, then, the narrator might be visiting Minnesota, admiring the blazing poop, and wishing he had lived elsewhere. Unrequited geography.<br /><br />I do really love how his eye roams across the scene. And he doesn't exert a muscle, or an assertion, until the last line when he drops the bomb.somewordshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11477570469244540692noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883979841111173610.post-10841873538645160882011-10-21T11:53:00.992-04:002011-10-21T11:53:00.992-04:00Brenda and RuneE, as foolish as it MAY have been f...Brenda and RuneE, as foolish as it MAY have been for me to throw the book, my first response was to distrust the poem's honesty. Did the speaker REALLY feel that way, or was it just a very clever and seemingly deep thing to say? Even now, I'm not entirely sure my skepticism was wrong-headed. However . . . <br /><br />RuneE, I think your take on irony is interesting and plausible. (Also, your English seems fine to me!). If that moment amounts to WASTING a life, then let's all get busy wasting ours. <br /><br />To me, a more obvious irony is that all those pretty images and his ability to appreciate them only make him depressed. <br /><br />HOWEVER, once I looked more closely, I saw that most or all of the images were double-edged: pretty, yes, but also lonely and/or passing, transient, suggestive of the mortality in the organic world. So he is wasting his life in at least a couple of ways--he is not completely at one with all that beauty and maybe peace in nature; BUT it's all passing, moving toward death, and so is he, so what's the point of seeing its glory? Or its loneliness? Or its decay? And in any case, what has he been doing with his life prior to this moment of awareness? He concludes he's been wasting it. <br /><br />Does that make any sense? <br /><br />The poem is, or demonstrates, an epiphany, which is (by definition?) an awakening, an Aha! moment, and those are not necessarily rational. The cause or stimulus for the epiphany might have little to do what's realized in--the content of--the epiphany itself. (Here, I think of James Joyce's famous story, "Araby," and others in Dubliners).<br /><br />In that non-rational spirit, it seems to me that more than one "truth" might be present in the epiphany, and those multiple truths might not be mutually exclusive. Aren't we all both living and dying at any given moment?<br /><br />So Wright's speaker might simultaneously be living his life to its fullest as he perceives all that imagery, and feels all that relaxation, but that simultaneously tells him how much of his life was NOT spent so fully, in such heightened awareness. And on top of that (to repeat) what's being perceived is both exquisite and dying.<br /><br />Clear as mud, right? If I'm way off, I hope someone will say something.Banjo52https://www.blogger.com/profile/04342397136888422440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883979841111173610.post-31908078119560434362011-10-21T07:18:30.602-04:002011-10-21T07:18:30.602-04:00I'm not one to comment too much on poetry, but...I'm not one to comment too much on poetry, but that last line indicates to me an intended ironic twist - he wanted to waste his life in the hammock in the sense that there are other values than work, work work 24/7 (I hope you get my meaning, English is obviously not my native language).<br /><br />As to teaching, schedules etc etc, I'm all with you.Rune Eidehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01008247272056395901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2883979841111173610.post-49263004124104988182011-10-19T14:23:15.805-04:002011-10-19T14:23:15.805-04:00I was worried about the last line. You had my sens...I was worried about the last line. You had my senses in high gear, expecting a shot gun to come out and be used in an awful way. <br /><br />Why does he give us that last line? Do you have a clue why? Why did you throw your book? Did it strike home or did you feel Wright had wasted a poem?<br />Inquiring minds want to know!Brenda's Arizonahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17880225110712592548noreply@blogger.com