“Summer Farm” by Norman MacCaig
 

Straws like tame lightnings lie about the grass
And hang zigzag on hedges. Green as glass
The water in the horse-trough shines.
Nine ducks go wobbling by in two straight lines.

A hen stares at nothing with one eye,
Then picks it up. Out of an empty sky
A swallow falls and, flickering through
The barn, dives up again into the dizzy blue.

I lie, not thinking, in the cool, soft grass,
Afraid of where a thought might take me – as
This grasshopper with plated face
Unfolds his legs and finds himself in space.

Self under self, a pile of selves I stand
Threaded on time, and with metaphysic hand
Lift the farm like a lid and see
Farm within farm, and in the centre, me.

– from his first collection Riding Lights (1955)


I can't help but feel this poem was somehow responsible for the later British trend of so-called Martian poetry in the late 1970s and early 1980s, named after Craig Raine's poem "A Martian Sends a Postcard Home" (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_poetry)

The oxymoron of "tame lightnings" in L1 heralds the string of subsequent oxymorons/contradictions/paradoxes in LL4-8:

"Nine ducks go wobbling by in two straight lines." (L4) How can a straight line wobble?

"A hen stares at nothing with one eye,/ Then picks it up." (LL5-6) Well done, hen!

"Out of an empty sky/ A swallow falls..." (LL6-7) Well that sky wasn't completely empty, was it?

"dives up" (L8) How can anything dive upwards?

Then comes the contradiction of "I lie" (L9) and "I stand" (L13). This can only be explained by the speaker standing up in between the two stanzas. But the speaker doesn't say that he stands up. Once we understand that he has stood up, we look again to see what might have motivated him to do so. In S3 he's lying on the grass, and from close range he sees a grasshopper suddenly take off without any effort beyond uncrossing its legs. He has identified with this grasshopper - note that he describes it by way of the pronouns, "his" and "himself" (L12) - and he is inspired to copy his new companion. He unfolds his own legs and magically stands up.

By way of this action he has entered into the organic life/flow of the farm. S4 is the speaker's attempt to capture the revelation he then experiences, thus the final paradox of the "Chinese-box" metaphor.

Thanks, Duncan, I've always loved this poem. I like your idea of it as a precursor to Martianism. Here's another of his which works by a startling shift in perspective (together with some well-judged Scottishisms, like "slounge"):

Basking Shark

To stub an oar on a rock where none should be
To have it rise with a slounge out of the sea
is a thing that happened once (too often) to me.

But not too often - though enough. I count as gain
That once I met, on a sea tin-tacked with rain,
that roomsized monster with a matchbox brain.

He displaced more than water. He shoggled me
Centuries back - this decadent townee
Shook on a wrong branch of his family tree.

Swish up the dirt and, when it settles, a spring
Is all the clearer. I saw me, in one fling,
emerging from the slime of everything.

So who's the monster? The thought made me grow pale
For twenty seconds while, sail after sail,
the tall fin slid away and then the tail.

Straws like tame lightnings lie about the grass
I think this a very weak simile/metaphor, lightening strikes in veins, it leaves nothing but burnt wood if it hits a tree, how straw is meant to look like 'tame lightening' is taking poetic imagination off the map for me.

Nine ducks go wobbling by in two straight lines.
The ducks wobble not the lines, but even so 'straight' is wrong, it's a geometrical description, a man made concept, the lines of ducks would be almost straight at best. Again I'm not impresssed.

dives up again into the dizzy blue.
I don't have a problem with 'dives up' to a bird there is no up or down in terms of defying gravity, and diving per se is not necessarily down, only with us flightless animals, a fish also can dive up, diving being the idea of letting a force take you as if you are doing nothing to create the movement.

I lie, not thinking, in the cool, soft grass,
Afraid of where a thought might take me – as
I think this is precious twaddle, the first line is cliche, 'afraid' is self-dramarization. I hate this kind of over-sensitive poetry, it's wimpish.

This grasshopper with plated face
Unfolds his legs and finds himself in space.
To me this cartoon cute, what the grasshopper hops without intention? and 'finds himself' in 'space' space being what, outer space or just ordinary space, and is the N meant to be the grasshopper 'This' suggests so which makes the antrhropomorphism even more syrupy.

Self under self, a pile of selves I stand
Threaded on time, and with metaphysic hand
Lift the farm like a lid and see
Farm within farm, and in the centre, me.
I like the last S, I would prefer the poem if it had only three Ss, I like the tension of having a 4 line S and 3S poem, I like the 4/3 tension, once you have 4/4 a poem can seem smug..does that make sense? 4/4 has no edge.
Not a bad poem but not one that moves my heart.

Whether or not he influenced Martianism, the poems are delightful.

Thanks for posting!

Paddy

An interview with Norman MacCaig

Duncan