Another doozy. Look at the back-to-back ionic majors (pyrrhic spondees): on these EYES WILD with a BLIND RAIN. Yeats could get away with that, but few others. And look carefully at the enjambments. Repetitions again: beat, beat and call, call. Full medial stops: your guarded heart; your eyes; will come-- She writes as though the constraints of line are no constraint at all. That said, the dropped roses in the street are completely over the top and rather spoil for this reader what is otherwise perfect. It could be worse--but only if they were dropped poems!

She had very little education, so she's not a Swinburne employing mastery of classical prosody. More like Dickinson, an authentic, autodidactic original. Her entry in The Oxford Companion to 20th C Poetry is worth searching out.

[This message has been edited by Tim Murphy (edited December 23, 2007).]

heya Moise,
re:


My first impression on reading, and before going through any posts, was that it displays acceptance and relief that grow as N draws nearer release, eased by the unexpected bonus of discovering that the eyes are kind.

Just btw -Moise, was there no comma after 'why' (the eyes are kind) in yr copy? If there is, tht's one reading, and if not, it is entirely another level of understanding, as though demanding to know why death's visage should nonethless have kind eyes, despite all N has heard/experienced of death situations.

I'd take 'stream' to be a different status to 'river', Maryann; thus I don't infer the aspect of risk, but rather a loss (her authentic self? her love? acceptance by her immediate/distant environment - ...will not believe in it...)with which N has come to terms (vision behind).

I dont see wearyiness etc; I see it as a poem of almost joy-bringing 'initiation' into the state of liberation.

Yea - I didn't want to try and break this into feet, so I just listed what I heard as the strongest stresses. I agree, it is hypnotic...

Mark

Our scans pretty much agree - I just added some promotions, which I tend to do when there are three 'unstressed' syllables in a row. The one vs. two syllable 'smile' is probably regional. It didn't affect me with 'On' or 'Fast'.

Someone in deep south may say 'fah-yest', though. *grin*

Mine may be an oddball view but I scan this tenuously as dactyllic with a lot of substitutes and "wrapping": stressed end syllables, some of which are simple cretics (DUM-de-DUM) while some are hypercatalexis that make it seem like anapest (DUM-de-de-DUM-de-de-DUM).
While the substitutions may all be "legitimate" there are a few too many of them for this reader's taste.


Season's best,

CW

CW,
That's a legitimate way to read it. I read it as an actor would read it to an audience. I can't imagine a reading as flat as that in a serious gathering. The bones are as you say, I think, but after that the spirit is much more free. I think there is a point where "legitimacy" becomes redundant in poetry. It is no respecter of "Laura Norder". (Australian joke.)
Season's best to you as well.
Janet

In a broader sense, maybe the poem is not only about literal death, but death represents some transition - some decision the narrator has made to leave one thing (or life) behind, in favor of a new one. The new life is one that she looks forward to and embraces, even though it may also mean giving up something. Maybe she was going to come out. I could see this poem also being about someone leaving a marriage.

I do see the poem as being about death itself. The acceptance of death and the overcoming of useless fear and resistance.
Janet

Oddball views are especially welcome on this thread.

Nothing on earth to me was like this wind-blown space,

I especially like this line.

It could be, Annie, in fact, it's very likely, that she was referring, in part, to her own sense of being different and persona non grata. She fell in love with a woman writer, who then mocked her in public.

The last line was interesting:

And we will not speak of life or believe in it or remember it as we go.

The idea of not believing in life once one has died is unusual. Usually, you expect a religious interpretation to require us to remember what happened in life and be concerned about it. That is not the message here. If you think about it materially, a corpse would not speak of life, nor believe in anything, nor remember anything. So there is a truth expressed here. Without this last line, I would find the overall poem dull.

The earlier descriptions of death being wind-blown are disappointing. Why should death be wind-blown?

I think the reason that the poem is not easy to scan is that the meter, ordered traditionally as something that can be described with terminology like "iambic", is not uniform enough for a scan to be useful. I don't think it would scan well using the terminology of alliterative meter either. There is word repetition, rhyme and alliteration. These patterns are what adds the hypnotic interest. There is no other repetition that would make a traditional or alliterative scan uncover further information to explain the hypnotic or rhythmic affect of the writing.

I did not see anything about lesbianism in the poem, but maybe there are keywords or secret images there that I am not aware of.