Analysis of Poems Assembled with Natural and Elemental References by Emily Dickson - Essay Example

Fascicles Assignment Two In choosing the following 12 poems centrifugal to elemental and organic imagery, it is hoped that a distinct connection between each of these works can be drawn without depriving them of the author’s original meaning. References to nature and the pieces of the earth which remain unchanged by human interference, allows for one to find meaning and application on multiple levels. Choosing poems which are richly assembled with natural and elemental references will together, form a pattern of continuity even in varying authors. The first poem chosen for this fascicles project, is entitled Germs by Walt Whitman. This piece is fundamentally significant and is named first as it is written in such a way that it capably yet briefly discusses virtually any and all things relevant to life on this earth. The very first line ushers the reader into an immediate mixture of nouns representing it seems, everything taking place in the world all at once, “Forms, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts”(Whitman, 1). Discussing this poem first lays the groundwork for the integration of 11 other poems which utilize imagery and monologue within the same or similar context. The next poem chosen to compose this project is titled Adam Means Earth by Samuel Menashe. This poem discusses the name ’Adam’ which is given to the biblical character introduced in Genesis, who essentially is the origin of mankind. By returning to the very beginning of time based on biblical lure, the poet manages to devise a foundation which encompasses all things as he alludes to the fact that the very name ’Adam’ translates to earth. The vivid contrast of earth, or the physical sum of all things, against the backdrop of a disembodied name which is far removed from tangibility, allows the reader to derive an essential meaning based on physical existence and spirituality on a fundamental level. The poet is able however, to remove the ideology of religion and still utilize biblical reference and imagery. He uses it to his advantage and it works well. Continuing with the theme of an elemental approach routed in earthy language, the poem entitled A Chagall Postcard written by Peter Porter, begins with a personification of the ’night’ drawing a similar connection between the physical and the intangible or disembodied idea of something such as the case with Menashe’s ’Adam’ compared to earth itself and Whitman’s first line coupling of pieces of life as we know them and tangible existence. Porter begins the piece with “The night that crows”(Porter, 1). This is an immediate materialization of the mood of the piece which provides the night with a voice and an carnivalesque quality making the night itself something that I alive. The poem entitled the Barred Owl written by Richard Wilbur is very similar to the piece by Porter as it begins with imagery of nighttime and the sounds that are invisibly juxtaposed within that setting, “The warping night air having brought the boom”(Wilbur, 1). Porter introduces the frailty of a child into the darker topic of the night itself mixed with the haunting sounds of the evening owl. Certainly, the mention of earthy elements is not something uncommon in poetry, but when contrasted against so sharply with the intangible or with existential ideology, it becomes a very useful poetic tool. Certainly, the poetry of Sylvia Plath cannot be left out of any rich poetry compilation. Her poem entitled Black Pine Tree in an Orange Light perhaps ushers in a more macabre tone with its immediate plunge into the color black set against the ’orange light’ immediately giving rise to very sharp and almost violent contrast. Interestingly though, Plath writes this piece, entirely indicative of Halloween or the ’witching hour’, with a nuance of cheerfulness which is seemingly mismatched to the setting but such that the uncomfortable mood most likely adopted by the reader, is intended by Plath in an almost sweet-misery, “Plant an range pumpkin patch/which at 12 will quaintly hatch”(Plath, 4,5). The poem itself is oxymoronic but in such a way that Plath uses the very basic of natural recourses to insight a sense of fear or dread in the reader. Plath utilizes a similar tone I her piece Daddy which is not an elemental poem as much as it is extremely bleak but written in an almost childlike innocents which makes a full circle epiphany like several of the other poems that this paper will be discussing. Wallace Stevens, though not quite as routed in things of the earth as Whitman, explores the contrast of earthy monologue mixed with either the intangible or the personification of the intangible. In his poem entitled Poem Written at Morning, he explores a near personification of a fruit but in a passing sense, “the pineapple was a leather fruit”(Stevens, 5). This is an intriguing marriage between plant and animal as it allows for the pineapple to be a bit more alive than what one might normally imagine is the case for a plant, but not to the point of over committing by resurrecting a non entity into an almost omniscient existence. This is the case when the ‘night’ is given a ‘voice’ or when the idea of a man (Adam) can be said to take on the meaning of the very earth itself. Poet Maya Angelou is a legendary poet in hr own time and brilliantly crafts language in celebration of achievements of African Americans and women as well as the total of mankind. In her poem entitled Still I’ll Rise, she grasps at large tangible but bigger than life imagery, not unlike Whitman or Plath, to assign her topic of African American oppression, a worldly synonym such that anyone can relate to the piece. Often times, the poetry written by or for children, will contain a foundation of references to things which compose the basic earth as known to most everyone. This provides a good reference point for children and adults alike, as most everyone can in one way or another, relate to the moon. In a poem by Rowving Smith entitled Dark Dark Moon, the moon is the centrifugal character and receiving party to and of the piece. The majority of the poem is a child like plea which transcends from a fear of the large night moon to a plea directed at the moon in which the narrator asks the moon not to go away after all. The piece is a very quick and natural moment of epiphany where the child realizes what we all must realize, that something as static and distant as the moon is not to be feared but is rather demonized in association with things of the night or darkness. In the spirit of earth being the origin and the place to which the living return, much ike the piece by Menashe, Carl Sandburg writes a poem entitled Grass which is both equal and opposite to Menashe’s piece. He writes from the perspective of the earth as a returning place that dead men go to where as Menashe writes the earth as a beginning point from which men are born, “PILE the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work— I am the grass; I cover all.”(Sandburg, 1-3). With a full circle of origin, life and death, the poems composing this fascicle piece are not a complete set without the work of famed gothic poet Edgar Allen Poe. In his famous piece, The Raven, a parallel between death and a tangible personification of a black raven is drawn. Poe illustrates in this piece how beautifully simple and elegant at the same time, the fragility of life really is. He makes another connection to an eerie simplicity in both life and death in his poem entitled Evening Star, “Twas noontide of summer, And mid-time of night; And stars, in their orbits, Shone pale, thro the light”(Poe, 1-3). This is perhaps the most simple of the 12 poems chosen for this project, but seemingly most appropriate for a conclusion as night is often the poetic tool used to represent death or completion of something. Much of Poe’s work dealt with dark and macabre imagery suggesting that most likely, this particular piece was a representation of acceptance of the inevitable, of an end to the beginning. Works Cited: Angelou, Maya.,(1987) Still I Rise, Columbia University Press, New York. Manashe, Samuel., (1968) Adam Means Earth, Library of America, London. Plath, Sylvia., (1963) Black Pine Tree in an Orange Light, Faber and Faber Publishing, London. Plath, Sylvia., (1962) Daddy, Faber and Faber, London. Poe, Edgar Allen, (1845) The Raven, ‘La America’ Publishing, New York. Poe, Edgar Allen, (1827) Evening Star, Eris Etext Project, New York. Porter, Peter., (1999) A Chagall Postcard, Oxford University Press, London. Sandburg, Carl., (1919) Grass, Harcourt, New York. Smith, Rowving., (1997) Dark Dark Moon, Poemhunter.com. Stevens, Wallace., (1923) Poem Written at Morning, Harmonium, New York. Whitman, Walt., (1900) Germs, Leaves of Grass, David McKay, Philadelphia. Wilbur, Richard., (1997) A Barrel Owl, Strix Varia, Canada. Read More