Boy at the Window -- Richard Wilbur

Guest poem submitted by Steve Chernicoff:

(Poem #1885) Boy at the Window Seeing the snowman standing all alone In dusk and cold is more than he can bear. The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare A night of gnashings and enormous moan. His tearful sight can hardly reach to where The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes Returns him such a god-forsaken stare As outcast Adam gave to Paradise. The man of snow is, nonetheless, content, Having no wish to go inside and die. Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry. Though frozen water is his element, He melts enough to drop from one soft eye A trickle of the purest rain, a tear For the child at the bright pane surrounded by Such warmth, such light, such love, and so much fear. -- Richard Wilbur

Apropos of Martin's submission of "A Barred Owl" (Minstrels Poem #1849),
here's another by Richard Wilbur that I like. It deals with the same
themes Martin mentioned in his comments on the other poem, the
"domestication" of a child's fear and the "stark sense of the violence
that lurks in the mundane." Wilbur's image of the mutual pity between
boy and snowman is quite moving.

One thing I particularly like about Wilbur is his formal discipline. In
an age when most poets can't be bothered with such niceties as rhyme and
meter, Wilbur's poems are as rigorously and precisely structured as
anything from a Milton, Keats, or Tennyson. An exemplary illustration of
Robert Frost's definition of freedom as "moving easy in harness."

--Steve

A Barred Owl -- Richard Wilbur

Guest poem sent in by an anonymous member:

(Poem #1844) A Barred Owl The warping night-air having brought the boom Of an owl's voice into her darkened room, We tell the wakened child that all she heard Was an odd question from a forest bird, Asking of us, if rightly listened to, "Who cooks for you?" and then "Who cooks for you?" Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear, Can also thus domesticate a fear, And send a small child back to sleep at night Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw. -- Richard Wilbur

As the parent of a young child myself, it is easy for me to relate to what
the poet calls the easy "domestication of fear" . It is probably the eternal
conundrum of the parent, treading the line between a desire to protect and
the truth.  Richard Wilbur has a stark sense of the violence that lurks in
the mundane. The last line sends chills up my spine.

[Links]

There is an excellent recording of the poet reading the "Barred Owl"
at The Poetry Archive:
  http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=1672

Previous Wilbur Poems on Minstrels (with biography):
  http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1116.html

Wikipedia entry:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wilbur

The Pardon -- Richard Wilbur

Guest poem sent in by Michael Rudko as part of
the recent dream theme

(Poem #1256) The Pardon My dog lay dead five days without a grave In the thick of summer, hid in a clump of pine And a jungle of grass and honey-suckle vine. I who had loved him while he kept alive Went only close enough to where he was To sniff the heavy honeysuckle-smell Twined with another odor heavier still And hear the flies' intolerable buzz. Well, I was ten and very much afraid. In my kind world the dead were out of range And I could not forgive the sad or strange In beast or man. My father took the spade And buried him. Last night I saw the grass Slowly divide (it was the same scene But now it glowed a fierce and mortal green) And saw the dog emerging. I confess I felt afraid again, but still he came In the carnal sun, clothed in a hymn of flies, And death was breeding in his lively eyes. I started in to cry and call his name, Asking forgiveness of his tongueless head. ..I dreamt the past was never past redeeming: But whether this was false or honest dreaming I beg death's pardon now. And mourn the dead. -- Richard Wilbur

           1950

The poem is about the avoidance of and ultimate confrontation with
mortality.  But on a much more immediate level it's about loving a dog and
dreading its death, one of my life's great realities.

The ten year old boy is able to admit his love only as long as the dog "kept
alive" (great use of the word "kept") and is unwilling or unable to even
look at the dog's dead body.  The most he can do is "sniff" the odor of
decay which is marvelously "twined" with the smell of the honeysuckle, and
briefly tolerate the flies' "intolerable buzz".  His world is "kind", and he
blames (can't "forgive") the dog for dying.  He reveals both his inability
to face death's harsh reality and his deeper intuitive awareness of its
meaning with the euphemistic, powerful phrase "the sad or strange/in beast
or man".  He shirks his responsibility, and relies on his father to perform
the ritual burial of his pet.

When the dog returns to the boy years later in a marvelous, terrible dream,
it's the "same scene" but different.  The green of pine and honey-suckle has
a "fierce and mortal" glow.  The "intolerable buzz" has become a hymn of
flies.  The dog crawls out of the jungle with his "lively eyes" alive with
death, probably maggots.  And the man at last returns to his boyhood fear
without evasion, crying and calling out the dog's name (which in another
great touch we never discover, as if it were too precious to reveal).
Finally, the boy who "could not forgive" is forced to ask forgiveness of a
"tongueless" dog unable to offer that most sacred of canine kindnesses, a
lick.

In the poem's powerful finale, Wilbur reveals the deeper meaning of the
dream ("the past is never past redeeming"), dispenses with it ("whether this
be false or honest"), and assumes the awesome duty of begging pardon of and
mourning for his dead, both beast and man.

The formality of the poem makes it.  It could never be so solemn and
forceful in free verse.  It meets Nabokov's test, fusing head and heart and
yielding the salutary spinal tingle that is the signal of great art.

Michael

Advice to a Prophet -- Richard Wilbur

Guest poem sent in by Sashidhar Dandamudi

(Poem #1195) Advice to a Prophet When you come, as you soon must, to the streets of our city, Mad-eyed from stating the obvious, Not proclaiming our fall but begging us In God's name to have self-pity, Spare us all word of the weapons, their force and range, The long numbers that rocket the mind; Our slow, unreckoning hearts will be left behind, Unable to fear what is too strange. Nor shall you scare us with talk of the death of the race. How should we dream of this place without us?-- The sun mere fire, the leaves untroubled about us, A stone look on the stone's face? Speak of the world's own change. Though we cannot conceive Of an undreamt thing, we know to our cost How the dreamt cloud crumbles, the vines are blackened by frost, How the view alters. We could believe, If you told us so, that the white-tailed deer will slip Into perfect shade, grown perfectly shy, The lark avoid the reaches of our eye, The jack-pine lose its knuckled grip On the cold ledge, and every torrent burn As Xanthus once, its gliding trout Stunned in a twinkling. What should we be without The dolphin's arc, the dove's return, These things in which we have seen ourselves and spoken? Ask us, prophet, how we shall call Our natures forth when that live tongue is all Dispelled, that glass obscured or broken In which we have said the rose of our love and the clean Horse of our courage, in which beheld The singing locust of the soul unshelled, And all we mean or wish to mean. Ask us, ask us whether with the worldless rose Our hearts shall fail us; come demanding Whether there shall be lofty or long standing When the bronze annals of the oak-tree close. -- Richard Wilbur

Over the past few days, we have seen quite a few poems dealing with themes
of war: pain, irony, death. This is another fine poem to the collection.
The language is fresh (live tongue is all/Dispelled, that glass obscured or
broken ; The singing locust of the soul unshelled) and the voice of the
poet takes the prophetic ring.

This poem also took me back to the 'sonnets' of Vikram Seth's Golden Gate
and this speech in that book given by a Catholic priest, against the
nuclear weapons and Cold War.

And the poem says all of the 'two-cents' I have to say about war.

And the poet had to this to say:

"Wilbur: Yes. I believe that what I was trying to do in that poem was to
provide - myself, of course - with a way of feeling the enormity of
nuclear war, should it come. The approach of that poem, which comes at
such a war through its likely effect on the creatures who surround us, is
a very "thingy" one. It made it possible for me to feel something beside a
kind of abstract horror, a puzzlement, at the thought of nuclear war; and
it may so serve other people. I hope so."

Peace!
Sashi

Links:

The Academy of American Poets
http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?45442B7C000C04050F

Two older Wilbur poems on Minstrels:
Poem #322
Poem #1116

Transit -- Richard Wilbur

(Poem #1116) Transit A woman I have never seen before Steps from the darkness of her town-house door At just that crux of time when she is made So beautiful that she or time must fade. What use to claim that as she tugs her gloves A phantom heraldry of all the loves Blares from the lintel? That the staggered sun Forgets, in his confusion, how to run? Still, nothing changes as her perfect feet Click down the walk that issues in the street, Leaving the stations of her body there As a whip maps the countries of the air. -- Richard Wilbur

Today's poem is reminiscent of Sandburg's "Last Answers" [Poem #713] in its
trick of simultaneously illustrating and deprecating 'poetry'. There is more
to it than mere rhetorical trickery, of course - to quote one critic:

  In fact, the smooth surface of the Wilbur poem can successfully distract
  us from recognizing how unusual and unexpected are the twists and leaps
  that structure the poem’s narrative. Many poems by Wilbur, while striking
  a superficial "balance," implicitly celebrate, while demonstrating, the
  virtues of a wit that is elaborately playful.
        -- http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/wilbur/bio.htm

and that certainly holds true for 'Transit'. I think what I enjoy most about
Wilbur's poetry is his unxepected ('elaborately playful' expresses it very
well) turns of phrase, evident here in the final couplet, where we are hit
with the twin images of "stations of her body" and "a whip maps the
countries of the air". (This tendency is even more evident in some of his
other poems, my favourite being "blurring to sheer verb", from "A
Fire-Truck").

Parenthetically, the line "made so beautiful that she or time must fade"
seems to be a dig at Shakespeare, whose preoccupation with time and decay
permeates the sonnets, though the imagery in the next verse is more
reminiscent of a later generation of poets. And I have to admire the way
Wilbur makes the images his own, blending them into the poem at the same
time as he turns the critical, external eye of 'what use?' upon them.

martin

Links:
  The Modern American Poetry site
    http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/wilbur/wilbur.htm
  has everything one could wish for about Wilbur, including a biography:
    http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/wilbur/bio.htm

In the Smoking Car -- Richard Wilbur

(Poem #322) In the Smoking Car The eyelids meet. He'll catch a little nap. The grizzled, crew-cut head drops to his chest. It shakes above the briefcase on his lap. Close voices breathe, "Poor sweet, he did his best." "Poor sweet, poor sweet," the bird-hushed glades repeat, Through which in quiet pomp his litter goes, Carried by native girls with naked feet. A sighing stream concurs in his repose. Could he but think, he might recall to mind The righteous mutiny or sudden gale That beached him here; the dear ones left behind ... So near the ending, he forgets the tale. Were he to lift his eyelids now, he might Behold his maiden porters, brown and bare. But even here he has no appetite. It is enough to know that they are there. Enough that now a honeyed music swells, The gentle, mossed declivities begin, And the whole air is full of flower-smells. Failure, the longed-for valley, takes him in. -- Richard Wilbur

An interesting poem - not brilliant, but I like the theme, and it's handled
well enough. The poem is enjoyable not so much for the imagery as for the
tone, which balances humour and warm sympathy nicely, with perhaps a hint of
commiseration, and some lovely lines like 'So near the ending, he forgets
the tale'. The poem also presents a somewhat wry look at today's rather
pervasive success-oriented culture - the very stereotypicality of the
character makes the reader realise that a good many people would rather
inhabit a comfortable dreamworld than cope with the real one, desiring no
better epitaph than 'poor sweet, he did his best'.

Links:

While this poem has echoes of Thurber's Walter Mitty and Schulz's Charlie
Brown, neither analogy is that strong.

More interesting is to compare it to Robinson's "Miniver Cheevy", a far
harsher look at a similar misfit: poem #234

Biography:

  Wilbur, Richard (Purdy)

   b. March 1, 1921, New York, N.Y., U.S.

  American poet associated with the New Formalist movement.

  Wilbur was educated at Amherst College, Amherst, Mass., and Harvard
  University, where he studied literature. He fought in Europe during World
  War II and earned a master's degree from Harvard in 1947. With The
  Beautiful Changes and Other Poems (1947) and Ceremony and Other Poems
  (1950), he established himself as an important young writer. These early
  poems are technically exquisite and formal in their adherence to the
  convention of rhyme and other devices.

  Wilbur next tried translating and in 1955 produced a version of Molière's
  play Le Misanthrope, which was followed by Molière's Tartuffe (1963), The
  School for Wives (1971), and The Learned Ladies (1978) and by Racine's
  Andromache (1982). In 1957 he won a Pulitzer Prize for poetry for Things
  of This World: Poems (1956), which was enthusiastically hailed as less
  perfect but more personal than his previous poetry. Wilbur wrote within
  the poetic tradition launched by T.S. Eliot, using irony and intellect to
  create tension in his poems. Some critics demanded more energy from his
  poems; this complaint was partially assuaged with the publication of
  Advice to a Prophet and Other Poems (1961), Walking to Sleep (1969), and
  The Mind Reader: New Poems (1976). He also wrote the lyrics for Leonard
  Bernstein's acclaimed musical comedy version of Candide (1957), children's
  books such as Loudmouse (1963) and Opposites (1973), and criticism,
  collected as Responses: Prose PiecesHe was poet
  laureate of the United States in 1987-88.

                -- EB