Tuesday, April 10, 2012

When Lilacs...

I am not that sure how Whitman’s poetic strategy for collective loss may work but one aspect of it did stand out. Whitman presents the idea that sorrow and loss sink into the very land, “Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities,/ Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets peep'd/ from the ground, spotting the gray debris.” The lilacs stretch out across all terrain and dot the nation with a feeling of loss. This idea was carried into at least one of the 9/11 poems, Billy Collins’ “The Names.” The names of the victims of the attack are etched into the very core and fabric of everything written across leaves, rocks, and stones or inked on skin. In Whitman’s poem however there is a sort of acceptance of death, “Come lovely and soothing death,/ Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,” he presents death as many poets have, it is a thing of necessity that happens to all people. He laments the tragedy of Lincoln’s death and uses love, as lilacs are seen as a symbol of love, to cope with the feeling of lose. The nation loved Lincoln and mourned his passing and honored his memory, that is at least how Whitman saw it. But the 9/11 poetry comes out of a different feeling. There is no singular character to attach love to, as “The Names” describes in its listing of the dead there were many that were loved by others but collectively there is only a deep sense of loss; the feeling of which is now etched in our memory as described in Richard Howard’s “Fallacies of Wonder” “Did some three thousand die for us to call/ remembered towers, wonders, beautiful.” The poem brings into question the idea of representation of a feeling would any object association do the dead justice? Can we find something to represent the pain of loss as Whitman has done with his lilacs? No there are too many dead, too many individuals with different lives and memories attached, but still we are brought together as a nation by the deep sense of loss that we all share.

1 comment:

  1. Very nice . . yes, 9-11 changes the focus . . .but still challenges the poetry . . .

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