For my Beats vs. NY School poem comparisons, I've chosen Gary Snyder's "Four Poems for Robin" and John Ashbery's "The Painter." Thematically, they are quite different. The former poem speaks nostalgically and wistfully of the speaker's past love, recounting memories and wondering whether he did the right thing by giving her up. The poem is divided into four sections, which I presume were the seasons of the year: summer, spring, autumn, and winter. Even though the seasons are different, the stanzas all have a feeling of coldness surrounded by the warm, natural environment, and they seem to all take place at night/dark. For example,
{"summer"}
"All night blossoms fell
Shivering on a sheet of cardboard
Feet stuck in my pack
Hands deep in my pockets
Barely able to sleep." (2-6)
{"spring"}
"Here in the night
In a garden of the old capital
I feel the trembling ghost of Yugao
I remember your cool body" (22-25)
{"autumn"}
"Last night watching the Pleiades,
Breath smoking in the moonlight" (27-28)
{"winter"}
"Only in dream, like this dawn,
Does the grave, awed intensity
Of our young love
Return to my mind, to my flesh." (58-61)
Also, in the first stanza, there is a curious super-spacing between some of the words in each line. The speaker was especially feeling cold when he slept outside at night, and instead of stuttering, he included pauses in his thoughts, and that also works well to symbolize "shivering" and "discomfort." The images and the solitary thoughts of the speaker really touched me. It evoked feelings of sadness within me, and fear for my own relationship. I sometimes wonder if I will end up feeling the same way as this person, cold and alone, and so I really have a pessimistic outlook for myself and my boyfriend. The speaker seems to have joined a monastery and relinquish all desires of the flesh, yet he cannot forget the woman he loved. It tells me that even though one wishes to seek enlightenment, harsh and unforgettable sacrifices must be made.
"The Painter" is about an artist who wishes to capture the sea in a portrait. But he has an odd method of doing so. He expects the sea to paint themselves upon his canvas. People tired of seeing nothing on his paper, so they suggested for him to use a brush and paint something more manageable. He was inspired after choosing his wife for his next work, and returned to trying to paint the sea by dipping his brush into it. After awhile, he gave up, and people were outraged. They threw him and his portrait from a tall building.
I found it to be a very odd poem. It sounded tragic to me, but the way it was written sounded like they did him a favor, and that his death was trivial and not the main point of the poem. I felt sorry for the painter, but intrigued by his thoughtfulness and inspiration. Perhaps he knew something that others didn't see. I felt angry at the people who made fun of him and condemned him. Does this not remind you of the story of Jesus? Especially with references to prayers and crucifixions. The sea's nature really did drain him of energy. I did see a link between prayer and the painter's subject.
"But just as children imagine a prayer
Is merely silence, he expected his subject
To rush up the sand, and seizing a brush,
Plaster its own portrait on the canvas." (3-6)
To me, this means that prayer can be said many times, with the hope that things will magically turn out as people wish without much effort on their part. The narrator also compares the painter to being "childlike." Also, another clever scheme employed by the poet was the repeated usage of the words "brush," "prayer," "portrait," "canvas," "buildings," and "subject," especially at the end of each line, and curiously or not, he uses each word once at the end of the sentence in each stanza.
"How could he explain to them his prayer
That nature, not art, might usurp the canvas?
He chose his wife for a new subject,
Making her vast, like ruined buildings,
As if, forgetting itself, the portrait
Had expressed itself without a brush." (13-18)
This can be found throughout the poem, with the exception of the last stanza, where there are only three lines, and the words "portrait," "canvas," and "subject" are found within the sentence, coupled as follows,
"They tossed him, the portrait, from the tallest of the buildings;
And the sea devoured the canvas and the brush
As though his subject had decided to remain a prayer." (37-39)
Canvas and brush obviously pair together very well, but the connections between portrait and building remains a bit hazy to me. Subject and prayer was also a good match. It is very powerful and intimidating to me, and seems to be the climactic portion of the entire poem. The sea refuses to be tamed by any human effort of control, and continues to be a force that cannot really be explained or predicted.
Status: Graded on December 3, 2007 11:37 PM (Attempt #1)
Grade: 10 out of 10
Most Recent Comment:
no i was not bored in the least. Ashbery's "The Painte" is written in form -- called a sestina. a sestina consists of 6 six-line stanzas which use the same 6 end words once per stanza in a varying pattern. then the seventh stanza (called the "envoy") is a tercet that uses all 6 end-words two per line. It is an incredibly rigorous form (E. Bishop has a really good sestina that's in your anthology if you care to check it out.)
