Since Peter Earsman brought up minimalism, I thought I'd bring up this little sonnet by Bishop.

Sonnet

Caught -- the bubble
in the spirit level,
a creature divided;
and the compass needle
wobbling and wavering,
undecided.
Freed -- the broken
thermometer's mercury
running away;
and the rainbow-bird
from the narrow bevel
of the empty mirror,
flying wherever
it feels like, gay!


While talking with a friend, he mentioned his belief that this piece was minimalist. I disagree, though the piece definitely has its idiosyncracies.

Is this minimalism? And does anyone else feel the last line is a disappointment?

Julie

It's abbreviated, true. The last word might be, in consonance with the build-up, "free"?

Hi, guys.

I believe this is not only a fine sonnet,
but a terrific poem. The choices for exempla
are...exemplary! (Taken from everyday life,
homey, and showing us our own world in the
immediate and accessible tropes of objects.)

Consider the theme, too, if you're wondering
about that last line, and the last word.

Although the usage was not as current then as now,
Bishop WAS gay, and often wrote about her feelings,
concerns, troubles, etc., as a homosexual in disguised
metaphors. I wouldn't push this too far, though.

A great poem.

"Gay" is a tremendous loss to the English language, doubtlessly.

Just the whole line, "wherever/it feels like, gay!" was a let down for me. I expected something snappier, after the great setup. A friend of mine commented that Bishop "never knew how to close a sale," and I think that is true of this poem.

But I won't argue about it being a fine poem, indeed.

Julie

Am I dense? The actual real-life "rainbow-bird" -- what is it? The mercury? If so, it seems a stretch to describe the blob as birdlike. Or is it a rainbow of light somehow "prismed"--but how would a bevel serve as a prism? If I had the key, maybe I could enjoy the ending more.

The earlier lines seem perfect; their symbolism calls up identity crises including and surpassing the sexual type. If EB's conclusion suggests only that one idea, it would diminish the poem's impact, at least for me.

Kate, a level, also called a spirit level,is a tool for measuring horizontal, vertical, or angled surfaces. There's a bevel at its center, liquid, that refracts light, etc. etc. An unabridged dictionary will give you more details. It also may allude to the fire-bird, or Phoenix prevalent in folklore and art. She apparently imagines it broken, freeing the "spirit," like a run amok rainbow.

Thanks for an arresting posting, Julie. Speaking of minimalism, here's something with a maximalist title and minimalist text. It's by Brad Leithauser, and it was anthologized in [u]Rebel Angels[\u].

Post-Coitum Tristesse: A Sonnet

Why
do
you
sigh,
roar,
fall,
all
for
some
hum-
drum
come?
--mm?
Hm...


All right, it's not much of a poem, compared with the Bishop, which is quite striking. And, unlike Len, I would be prepared to go all the way to pronounce EB's poem primarily gay (in the lamentable sense) and only secondarily anything else. The choice of tool for metaphor is quite brilliant.

Alan Sullivan

Still mystified, RCL! I've used spirit levels, and seen them used. My contractor didn't use them enough! But here EB speaks of the "mirror's bevel" -- isn't that another image entirely? Mirrors and cut glass often have bevels along the perimeter, after all. Where is a clue that EB circles back to her original image in her final image, after a linear progression to the compass and the thermometer? And is it good writing to abandon the world of interesting objects by ending with a happy bird?

This is my way of agreeing with Julie's original point: EB doesn't close the sale.

Gee, I don't know. Maybe her mirror was crooked? I'll take another look at it, but agree it ends with a thump, falls on the page like a dead bird. I wasn't trying to justify her, just looking at the same mystery you were. I think I saw three different images (level, thermomenter, and mirror bevel), each instantly refracting light (like a rainbow?) that prefigure her figurative bird at the end. What the hell, the blue bird of happiness?!

------------------
Ralph

[This message has been edited by RCL (edited February 01, 2001).]