* Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer Act III
by Neal Whitman the Poetry Prof
This months profession:
In poetry, I like a little mystery. Confusion? No way!
This month, how about a confession?
To tell the truth, I dont get? a lot of modern poetry.
In the January Poetry Prof essay, I took you back to the day when Miss Terry asked us juniors in her English class, What do you think the poet is trying to say? Perhaps a better question might have been, What do you think the poet meant by that? or even better, What did it mean to you? But, heres the rub. Dont you first need to know what the poem is about? Â
Consider James Joyces Finnegans Wake. (Must we?, you ask.) Yes, I know its not a poem per se. But, Im not sure it is prose either. For the sake of discussion, lets call it a prose poem,? a very long one it took him 17 years to write.
In homage to Miss Terry, No, I dont know what Joyce was trying to say.? But, I also do not know what he meant, and I certainly do not know what it means to me. One English professor advised the first-time Finnegan reader, lie on your bed, hold the book over you, and let the words pour down [A Cow for Spencer,? Time Magazine, April 22, 1946]. I tried that and it didnt work. I then looked for help in A Readers Guide to Finnegans Wake. [William York Tyndall, 1996]. Give him credit for truth in advertising. He wrote in his introduction that, after reading his book, youll either rush out to buy Finnegans Wake, or youll be hiding under your bed clutching a bottle of aspirin.? In my case, I grabbed Excedrin Extra Strength.
Speaking of drugs, in the movie, The Big Chill (1983), Nick, heavily medicated, is watching a movie on late night TV. Sam enters the room.
Sam: What’s this?
Nick: I’m not sure.
Sam: What’s it about?
Nick: I don’t know.
Sam: Who’s that?
Nick: I think the guy in the hat did something terrible.
[We see a man being thrown through the glass window of a door into a room of men… all wearing hats.]
Sam: Like what?
Nick: You’re so analytical! Sometimes you just have to let art… flow… over you.
[Sam rolls his eyes]
Letting art flow over you might good advice for looking at art. Take, for instance, a painting. If it is abstract art, asking, What is it a picture of?? is the wrong question. It is not a picture of anything. It is color, shape, line, on canvas. It is. Back to Finnigans Wake. What is it about? Samuel Becketts retort? Its not about something. It is that something itself.? [in James S. Atherton. The Books at the Wake, 1960] Hmmm| sounds like he is saying, This book is abstract art. Just let it flow over you. Let the words pour down.? But, wait a sec. That might work for visual art, but Finnegans Wake is a literary work of art. Isnt literature supposed to be, well| literal? The reader, by definition, is literate. So, shouldnt poetry, prose, and even prose poems, be readable?
Of course, Finnegans Wake is readable, but I suspect not for the common reader.? Oliver St. John Gogarty (Jame Joyces friend and model for Buck Mulligan in Ulysses | his nephew, believe it or not, lives here in Pacific Grove, CA) remarked that the problem with those he called The Moderns? Â (I call em The Obscurists?) was that they were left to talk to themselves for want of an audience.? He added more specifically that the problem with Finnegans Wake was that Joyce went one step further: He talked to himself in his sleep.? [in Atherton] Well, there. Ive given it away. What is Finnegans Wake about? It is about a mans dream. One night in bed. Asleep.
So, before I turn off the bed lamp, let me profess: the common reader, any reader, should be able to say what a poem is about, what the poet may have had in mind, and what the poem means to him or her not mean? in an analytical way, but in terms of having an experience. Yes, thats it. A poem should be an experience. And, Hey, Im confused!? does not count! What makes a poem wonderful is when it brings you to a place before or after words take place| perhaps to that place of wondering just before you go to sleep. Now, thats poetry.
Oh, and one more thing: Last month I modeled my “Fear the Poet” cap. This month I donned my “Readers Rule” cap, a gift from Getting Something Read. My wife, Elaine, noted that “Rulers Rarely Read.” Hmm | given how they treat poets, maybe that’s a good thing.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
> To tell the truth, I don’t “get†a lot of modern poetry.
…
> … the common reader, any reader, should be able to say what a poem
> is about, what the poet may have had in mind, and what the poem
> means to him or her–– not “mean†in an analytical way,
> but in terms having an experience.
Um, first, I have a[nother] nit to pick: perhaps you meant “in terms
of having an experience”?
But really, my main concern is to learn more about what kinds of poems meet this test for you, and which don’t. [More] examples would help.
Confession of ulterior motive: I wish to “selflessly” offer a poem of mine as an example, and ask you to read it, and to tell me whether you feel that you “get” it or not. No, I’m not going to paste the poem into this comment: that would be cheating. But you can read it here:
(and reply here on this site, or by e-mail, or not at all, as you wish).
I know that there are things not spelled out in this poem (e.g. “I guess it’s time” for what?). My sense is that some people think that this level of mystery detracts from the experience, and some don’t. My goal (other than this being a sneaky way to maybe get a few folks to read it) is to get a better feeling for what is the right sort of place to submit poetry like this for publication (and in particular, whether this site is the right sort of place).
If this use of the comment mechanism is deemed improper, I apologize in advance.
Tom,
Thank you for catching missing word in April 1 “Poetry Prof” essay. I admit it –– am a poor typist and poor finder-of-my-mistakes. I guess I have not outgrown a need for high school English teacher Miss Terry’s critical eye. Also, Kristina Baer’s correction of May 1 posting, letting me know I was wrong to put an apostrophe in Finnegans Wake, alerted me to correct both April 1 and May 1 reference. Not the first time “bingo was wrongo.” It took Poet Laureate Donald Hall (we have corresponded since 1993) to correct a reference I made to T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, to which I had in error placed The in front. In any case, I will go to your web site and respond privately as you suggest. For today, please intone an incantation for no rain on the Monterey Peninsula. Tomorrow is Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation annual Garden Party, our biggest fund raiser of the year.
From Continent’s End,
Neal Whitman