April 2 - The Great Poet Returns

Mark Strand was actually born in Canada, on Prince Edward Island, though he has spent most of his adult life teaching in American universities. Yes, he is still alive. In fact, he is widely regarded as one of the premier American poets, having won enough awards to allow for such a subjective claim. Oh, and it’s Canada’s National Poetry Month in April, too (representin’ for my northern brethren). Anyway, I’m more interested in talking about Strand’s poem:

The Great Poet Returns

When the light poured down through a hole in the clouds,

We knew the great poet was going to show. And he did.

A limousine with all white tires and stained-glass windows

Dropped him off. And then, with a clear and soundless fluency,

He strode into the hall. There was a hush. His wings were big.

The cut of his suit, the width of his tie, were out of date.

When he spoke, the air seemed whitened by imagined cries.

The worm of desire bore into the heart of everyone there.

There were tears in their eyes. The great one was better than ever.

“No need to rush,” he said at the close of the reading, “the end

Of the world is only the end of the world as you know it.”

How like him, everyone thought. Then he was gone,

And the world was a blank. It was cold and the air was still.

Tell me, you people out there, what is poetry anyway?

Can anyone die without even a little?

OK, I admit I also chose this because yesterday was Easter (and Cesar Chavez Day, but I’ll get to that later). Also, I’m doing my own interpretations here based solely on the poem itself, to the exclusion of any biographic or other supplemental information I may have access to.

The Great Poet character in this poem is rife with Judaeo-Christian associations to a divine being. He has “big wings,” generally denoting an angel, and his limo as white tires and, absurdly, stained-glass windows. He also appears with a beam of light from the heavens and “whitened” the air when he spoke. Put that with the poem’s title, and he could be a Jesus figure as well.

It wasn't until Jesus made partner that the whole shamrock metaphor really came together.

Now, imagine this in your head: what color is the Great Poet’s suit? His limo? It doesn’t explicitly say, but I had to check the text again to make sure they weren’t white. My own image of the poet at first was white suit, white ride, good guy. Surprise, surprise, I want to side with the poet. But I look at him some more and I get suspicious.

For one, I imagined the limo coming out of the clouds in the beam of light, but the text doesn’t support that. The images and language used have a way of providing us with a detail here and there, while we tend to fill in the other, less-descriptive language, with our own assumptions. “Coincidentally,” this always ends up making the Great Poet look better. Now that I’m paying attention to this, the Great Poet appears more like a Jerry Falwell character, and I would not buy a ticket to that reading (although I’m always tempted by free wine).

Here’s another detail: The narrator starts out as one of the crowd, “we knew the great poet was going to show,” but abruptly separates himself by saying “There were tears in their eyes” rather than “our” eyes. Why? Has the narrator realized something? Why aren’t there tears in his eyes as well? (Also, I’m just using AP style for my pronouns here, so hush). The narrator stays in a role of commentator rather than active participant from then on, even giving his own thoughts for the final two lines.

He's fine so long as you keep his headset on him.

OK, this is getting a bit long so let me try and get this straight: Great poet is kind of a fraud, the audience is oblivious (aside from the narrator), he tells them to not worry about the end of the world; i.e., death, because it is only the beginning of something else (possibly, but not necessarily, heaven).

The crowd seems to take this heart, or at least the “worm of desire,” which reminds me of the snake in Eden, has bored into their hearts. By the way, if the worm is the snake and the snake is the gateway to the Tree of Knowledge/Sin, then the poet is telling the crowd to stay ignorant and blissful, right?

I hear a knock at the door.

Upon his departure, the world is at once “blank.” This negative and positive to this. A clean slate always seems like a great way to improve your life mid-way through (ask Catwoman), but erasing all context/past means we lose what made us who we are in the first place. There’s no warmth, no wind. The world is stagnant and sterile.

Oh, to allow for a rebirth of originality! Except it would be a lie, considering my knowledge of the past does not dictate what actually happened, or does it?That leads to the final lines of this poem. The poet wants to leave us with answers, but the narrator forces us to end with questions. Is it better to believe and be saved/lost? What about aware and miserable? “What is poetry anyway?” Given the constant religious language associated with the poet and his reading, isn’t poetry just another form of religion? (Albeit, one a bit more flexible and evolving.) Why does the poet whiten the air and leave the world blank?

“Can anyone die without even a little?” Without, what, reading Dante? I’m sure plenty have. Actually, this line flips the expected language. People usually refer to art in general as a way of living, not dying. Can anyone live without even a little seems the usual sentiment. How can poetry help me die? Perhaps life is just building exhibits to display in your own presidential library, or Facebook. Hmmm...this may be something you should answer for yourself. Thanks for reading. Apologies for typos I missed.

UPDATE: I'ma quote something Jenny Liou wrote on Facebook cuz my response got too long for a comment. (sorry for truncating)

""Actually, this line flips the expected language. People usually refer to art in general as a way of living, not dying." Really? But what about Montaigne (following Cicero): "to philosophize is to learn how to die"? Or (joining the 20th century, if not the 21st) Robert Penn Warren's "Bearded Oaks"?

That's a really good point. Oh dag, that coincides nicely with the Great Poet's quote in the poem. "No need to rush...the end of the world is only the end of the world as you know it." By which I mean to say that the Great Poet remains a suspicious figure in the poem. His sermon to the peoples provides them with a false sense of security. "How like him" they think as he thoroughly meets their expectations. His philosophy leaves the people alone in a chill wind without helping them to deal with it.

Now I'm looking at all that white the Great Poet creates and getting a feeling of death, an entropic wind, even. The people are stuck under the clouds just like they were before, right? The Great Poet offers stability, security, comfort. He whites out the conflict that, as a vaccine gives us strength through attack, allows people to grow. Is he giving the people what they want (a philosophy of life) when he ought to be giving them what they need (philosophy of death). He'd make a terrible Batman.