"Law Like Love"

I’ve started flipping through my burgeoning collection of poetry books, but nothing's really called out to me except for the first poem in another Mary Oliver book that I borrowed from the library, and since I just wrote something about Oliver, I decided to look back over the samplers instead. Alternately skimming and reading the post-war sampler again, I was struck by how much I liked W. H. Auden’s “Law Like Love” on second reading. The first time, as I recall, only the last stanza out to me. It sounded so incredibly cynical about love that my internal skeptic could barely contain its glee. But I had a whole sampler to finish reading, after all, so I continued on without reading the poem a second time.

Coming back to it now, I think I like it because Auden’s tone throughout the whole poem (at least, in my opinion) seems subtly pessimistic. It seems to me like he’s calling out society; we always act like we know how things are, like we’re right, like we’re good, when in reality we don’t and we’re not. The last line is what really seals it for me. “Like love we seldom keep.” It sounds almost scathing. I suppose you could read it as a reference to loves lost, but my gut instinct is to read it as a reference to how fickle people can be—an accusation rather than a lament. When I first read the poem, without really stopping to think about it, I took it as a quaint observation of how everyone defines things differently, using the example of both love and the law. But I think there’s actually this subtle undercurrent of cynicism going on. The way I interpret it, law isn’t necessarily what we think it is, and neither is love. We build up these grand ideas about these concepts, romanticizing and idealizing them, but in fact they aren’t quite so grand as we imagine. The law isn’t perfect, and neither is love. Both are flawed, unstable, and ultimately unreliable. That’s my take, anyway.

I think the form of this poem also makes it really effective. It’s not so repetitious that it gets boring, but it’s not so formless as to be uncompelling. His language is understandable and clear, and it sounds to me like the way people actually talk. Also, it’s kind of fun to read out loud; it helps you see the differences between the stanzas and the different people in them. Furthermore, I just like the comparison between love and the law. I think it’s very clever.

A Brief Excursion into Yeats and Irish Mythology

I remember being pretty indifferent to the poetry that we read in our pre-modern sampler (namely Yeats and Hardy) a few weeks back, but when the references to Irish mythology appeared in the Yeats section, man, I got excited. Mythology is one of those things for me, an automatic way to get me interested. We read two Yeats poems with obvious ties to Irish mythology: “The Hosting of the Sidhe” and “Cuchulain Comforted.”

On first reading, I liked “The Hosting of the Sidhe” more, probably because what Niamh said immediately made me think of Tír na nÓg. The imagery also struck me much more vividly, which I suspect is an important factor in influencing how I react to a poem. I liked “Cuchulain Comforted” a little less because I found it slightly confusing the first time through—meaning, I wasn’t entirely sure what was supposed to be going on. That’s probably because it didn’t seem to be referencing the Cuchulain stories I remember the best, which are ones like his slaying of Culann’s hound, his affair with Fand, and some of the Cattle Raid of Cooley (that curse on the men of Ulster? Best curse ever). Before I could form a final opinion on either of the poems, though, my logical next step was research.

Said research was conducted mostly by means of the textbook from my mythology class last summer (The Friendly Guide to Mythology) and the ever-handy Wikipedia. I also flipped through my “new” copy of Bulfinch’s Mythology (courtesy of my mother’s sudden urge to clean out her closet), and discovered that it only contains one short Cuchulain story—Bricriu's Feast, the one that bears the most resemblance to Gawain and the Green Knight, which figures.

Imagine my glee when I discovered that the goddess Niamh is actually a queen of Tír na nÓg, so my original gut response was spot-on. I was also excited to learn that Caoilte is apparently a nephew of Fionn MacCumhail, and that Niamh had a relationship with Oisín, who was Fionn’s son. Also, Knocknarea is a huge limestone hill, and the Sidhe (more accurately the aes sidhe) are the “people of the mound.” I love finding out all these connections. Official verdict: “The Hosting of the Sidhe” is pretty darn cool.

Next up, Cuchulain. After doing my research, I’m now fairly convinced that “Cuchulain Comforted” is about Cuchulain’s death. According to my mythology textbook, during the Cattle Raid of Cooley, Cuchulain killed a man called Cailidín, who was one of Medb’s soldiers. Cailidín’s widow later gave birth to six children, three boys and three girls, whom Medb sent to study sorcery. After many years, they returned with the goal of killing Cuchulain. I’m seeing a connection between the six children and the “six mortal wounds” mentioned in Yeats’ poem, because nowhere can I find that Cuchulain was actually wounded more than once (this death-blow coming in the form of a magical spear thrown by Lugaid, whose father Cuchulain had also killed). The shroud connection to his death seems pretty straightforward, because the word shroud is most commonly used to refer to a burial covering. Then there’s the bird connection as well; a raven/crow, depending on the source, lands on Cuchulain’s body as a sign that he has died. That’s why I see the use of “bird-like” at the beginning of the poem and “the throats of birds” at the end as an indication that Cuchulain is about to die.

So I definitely like “Cuchulain Comforted” a lot more after having done my research and figured out some of the connections in the poem. I’d be really curious to read other Yeats poems based on Irish mythology (although maybe not other Yeats poems in general, as I don’t think I was terribly impressed by him on a whole).

Oh, and one more thing: My textbook tells me that Niamh was a lover of Cuchulain. Bam! I’ve just connected the two poems. I knew it would be a good idea to keep that book.

Orpheus and Eurydice

Update! I now have two stacks of poetry books on my bedroom floor. I wanted to check out some of the poets that we read in class that I enjoyed, so yesterday I went to the public library to pick up some books I’d requested and to check out the poetry section on the third floor. I left with a huge pile of books balanced precariously in my arms.

Before the library, though, I went with one of my friends to see our Intro to Literary Studies professor from last semester. We sat around for about an hour talking with him. My friend told him that we liked everything we read in that class except Melville, and he told us that this semester they had cut out Melville and the students had read poetry about Orpheus and Eurydice instead. When my friend’s face displayed blatant envy (she loves poetry), he offered to print us copies of the readings. So when we finally left his office, it was with several pages of poetry that had been influenced by Greek mythology.

I was curious because one of them was “Eurydice” by H.D., and we talked about her in class a couple weeks ago when we talked about Pound and imagism. But I’ll be honest, when I read the poem it left me pretty confused. I feel like her use of language is slightly baffling. There’s all this repetition, and all this stuff about colors and flowers and whatnot, and I had a difficult time figuring out what H.D. was trying to get across. I’m familiar with the myth, so I read the poem with that in mind, and I still had difficulty.

It seems to me like Eurydice is angry that Orpheus looked back (well, no kidding, I’d be pretty peeved too in her shoes), and it seems as if she’s mostly lamenting the loss of living plants, what with comparing all the colors of the flowers to the lack of color in the underworld. I also got the impression that she recognizes how bad Orpheus must feel, because even though she calls him arrogant and ruthless, she says stuff like, “my hell is no worse than yours.” That makes me think that she sees that he’s suffering too, because he’s got to live with the knowledge that he screwed everything up for himself and for her. Either that, or maybe Eurydice is just trying to make herself feel better by pretending that her situation isn’t all that bad and his is awful. I’m really not sure.

The ending perplexes me as well. What I make of it is that Eurydice is reassuring herself with the eternal existence of her soul in the underworld; even though she was lost to the land of the living, she will never be lost to the land of the dead. I feel like I kind of get it, but not really at all. It’s kind of aggravating, because after talking about imagism, I was expecting H.D. to be easier to understand. I guess focusing on one image doesn’t necessarily equate with clarity of language or meaning.

I liked “I Dream I’m the Death of Orpheus,” by Adrienne Rich, a lot better. And it’s strange, I couldn’t really tell you exactly why. I have no idea what this one means either. But I really like the flow of it. I like how it makes me feel when I’m reading it, and I like the images it makes me see. It almost seems to me like a reclaiming of the myth. I mean, in the original story, Eurydice has no power whatsoever and she’s pretty much just an object for Orpheus to rescue or not, but here Rich gives the narrator of the poem power. And then Orpheus, who seems to have more potential power in the story, even if he wastes it—here I interpret him as the “dead poet,” powerless. It’s like, the tables are turned. The narrator of the poem is like Eurydice, but she’s guiding the dead poet Orpheus, instead of him guiding her.

Upon reflection, I think it might be word choice that made me like one poem where I disliked the other, even when I didn’t feel that I entirely understood either of them. I think I just liked the words—and the images I associated with them—better in Adrienne Rich’s poem than I did in H. D.’s.

"When I Get Depressed"

So I currently have a pile of poetry books on my bedroom floor. Why, you may ask? Well, I was talking to my stepdad about this poetry blogging project the other day. He was an English major back when he was at university (the same university I’m attending, as a matter of fact), so we often talk about what classes I’m taking, and what I’m reading, and sometimes he’ll look over my papers for me to make sure they’re coherent. Anyway, when I told him that the blog could be about any poetry and not just what we’d read in class, he immediately went to pull out his small collection of poetry books and share them with me.

My stepdad also majored in biology, and now he works as an interpretive naturalist at one of the metroparks about an hour north of here, so I wasn’t surprised to see that most of his poetry collection is what I would call “nature-y.” We flipped through the books together, and he had me read a few poems he thought were especially good. One in particular he suggested because it reminded him of me. It was in a book called Moment to Moment: Poems of a Mountain Recluse, by David Budbill, and it’s called “When I Get Depressed.”

“I get silent

and I stare

at nothing

all day long,

or I lie down

and read

the ancient masters

who move me

to even greater

depths of melancholy

and then,

refreshed and knowing

I am not alone,

I get up

and join the world

again.”

My stepdad was right. It is extremely like me. And I really like the poem too. I like how it’s very simple and to-the-point, but also thoughtful and relatable. The structure of the poem is really neat, too. The short lines and the way they’re organized on the page works really well, in my opinion, and I think it’s cool that the whole thing is actually only one sentence, but it still conveys so much meaning. “The ancient masters who move me to even greater depths of melancholy.” Yes yes yes, that is just awesome, word choice and meaning-wise. I also like the contrast between the first three stanzas and the last one—like, the last stanza can be read on its own and sounds really uplifting that way. Oh, and I like how the title of the poem is also like its first line. That’s clever.

I feel like this poem is so short and straightforward that there’s not much really to be said except “I like it” or “I don’t like it.” I happen to fall in the former category. And I also like writing about poems that I enjoy, so I thought I’d share this one.

"Wild Geese"

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

            —Mary Oliver

I was amused when we talked about Robert Frost in class, and how everyone always gets some version of “The Road Not Taken” when they graduate from high school. It’s true, yes, but it didn’t happen to me. My graduation poem was “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver. Me personally, I own just two books of poetry; one is a small collection of Lord Byron poetry that my aunt gave me for my twelfth birthday (I'm pretty sure I've never even read it), and the other is a Mary Oliver book called Owls and Other Fantasies.

My acquisition of the latter occurred at the graduation party of one of my closest friends. I like this story a lot, so I’ve decided it’s relevant. The party had ended over, everyone else had already left, and my friend and I were sorting through her graduation gifts. When her mother called her out of the room to discuss something, I idly picked up one of the gifts—a book of poetry—and flipped it open to the first poem. It was probably the first (and possibly still the only) time in memory that I’d read a poem and felt such an immediate and strong visceral reaction. When my friend came back into the room and found me teary-eyed, she promptly said, “Hey, I got two copies of that book! You take that one!” and, ignoring my protests, she crossed out the inscription, wrote her own for me, and gave me the book.

For the almost three years since then, “Wild Geese” has been my favorite poem. Admittedly, since I never really read poetry before, having a favorite poem at all is a bit of a stretch. It probably would have been more appropriate to simply call it the only poem I liked. But now, having read a nice amount of poetry for this class and then coming back to read “Wild Geese,” I still say this one’s my favorite.

I’m not sure I can actually explain why it affects me so strongly, since I feel like it’s on a very personal level. I just love everything about this poem. I love its structure, and its clarity, and its imagery. I don’t feel like anything is minimized in this poem. Individual experiences are valuable, and they in turn contribute to the value of the world as a whole connected entity. It’s like, you need all the parts to make the whole. I also really love the connection of the human experience to nature; it makes me think, “This is natural. What you’re experiencing, it’s natural, and it’s all right.” Oliver never feels grandiose or condescending to me. We were talking in class last week about some poet who wrote as if she were better than everyone else. One of the great things about this poem, I think, is that it feels as if we’re all on the same level. Poet, reader, geese, rain. The way Oliver writes it, I feel like we’re all necessary and equally worthy parts of the same beautiful experience.

I really wanted to write about this poem because I love it so freaking much, but I think I’m having the hardest time because of that. It’s extremely difficult for me to explain myself in words.

Anyway, rather than cynical old Frost, I think they should give kids this poem when they graduate.