Hi, everybody--

I found myself flipping through some Robert Frost today--the semester is over and I can indulge myself-- and I re-read "Birches." It confirmed a suspicion I've harbored for a long time that I've never really articulated till now: I hate that last line. It's a very fine poem, of course-- but I honestly think that as a way to end it, one could do a whole lot better than be a swinger of birches. Way too cute for me. Strange verb usage, too.

This made me think of how effectively or ineffectively other well-known poems end. Some, I think, do so magnificently (e.g. "The Second Coming") while others tend to flop (maybe Sharon Olds's "Topography." I have never found it funny, which I think was her intention.)

Does anyone have any their own personal candidates for winners and losers in the "endings" department? Naturally this will depend heavily upon the sensitibilties of the individual reader, but I think it might be interesting to talk about them.

Marilyn

PS-- Many of you probably know that here's a wonderful book on this subject by Barbara Herrnstein Smith called POETIC CLOSURE: A STUDY OF HOW POEMS END (U of Chicago P, 1968-- unfortunately out of print, but libraries should have it.)

Marilyn,

Whatever about the ending, I always thought “Birches” one of Frost’s less satisfactory poems

Strong endings are not always appropriate, of course, but “Dulce et Decorum Est” was one of the poems that turned me on to poetry many years ago, and I still love the ending, the way the Latin slots neatly into the meter.


My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Philip Larkin has some great endings, such as this, from “The Whitsun Weddings”:

……………………..We slowed again,
And as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelled
A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower
Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.

Or the beautifully fudged ending to “An Arundel Tomb”

Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

And Frost? The wonderful ending to “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

As for dull or so-so endings - a rather large proportion of villanelles and sestinas. But nothing else much springs to mind, as you would expect with dull endings.

Apologies, Marilyn, I got your name wrong. I shall change it as soon as my posting appear on my browser, as I have problems
with delayed appearances of postings on Eratosphere.

Well, most of Dorothy Parker's poems rely on the stinging last line. "Resume" and "Unfortunate Coincidence" come to mind. Her last lines reward the reader, which makes a successful end.

The book, Poetic Closure, was apparently reissued in 1971 under the name Barbara H. Smith. A few copies are available at Amazon Marketplace for about $27 and up.

I found an excerpt here: http://home.comcast.net/~barbarajdaniels/Closure.htm

Toni

oops -- I guess that's not really an excerpt!

[This message has been edited by Toni Clark (edited May 17, 2006).]

Last lines are certainly an interesting subject.

The last line of many light-hearted poems is what makes the whole poem work. For example:

Rainbow

When you see
de rainbow
you know
God know
wha he doing -
one big smile
across the sky -
I tell you
God got style
the man got style

When you see
raincloud pass
and de rainbow
make a show
I tell you
is God doing
limbo
the man doing
limbo

But sometimes
you know
when I see
de rainbow
so full of glow
and curving
like she bearing child
I does want know
if God
ain’t a woman

If that is so
the woman got style
man she got style

John Agard, 1989

On the other end of the spectrum, elegiac poetry also often has a last line that comes as a shock. In A. E. Stallings' recent collection, Hapax, there's a lovely poem called "Visiting the Grave of Rupert Brooke" in which she retells the story of how Odysseus snared Achilles, who was dressed up as a girl, by putting a sword among gifts he'd laid out for the girls. She ends with: "But only old men made it home from Troy."

I think the last line often needs to be dramatic when a poem is especially light-hearted or especially elegiac. Otherwise, an overly dramatic last line is often too out of place. But it always has to give closure and/or take you back to the start of the poem again.

This is probably all very banal, but I wanted to chime in: last lines are what it's all about.

Duncan

Duncan, that Agard poem is wonderful. Took the top of my head off, and I don't know a single thing about the poet, John Agar. Thank you for that post.

And Larkin-- yes! Parker, yes! And I look forward to reading Alicia's poem about Troy.

Toni-- just want to quickly point out what you probably already know: the excerpt you provide a link to is not actually from Barbara H Smith, it's from a Barbara J Daniels-- who took most of Smith's categories and distilled them a bit. She acknowledges Smith, of course. But I do think Smith's approach to these "ways of closure", which involves backing up each one with examples and all kinds of interesting historical and linguistic reasons why-- are worth spending time with.

More soon; miles to go, etc.--

Marilyn

PS-- Oliver, I think you got my name right, didn't you? I don't see any error at all.

Just personally, I often write the last line of a poem first and build the rest around it. I hope this is not too obvious in the finished product!

No great endings come to mind at the moment, but one of my favorite OPENINGS is by Housman:

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows.

...I am not always sure that the "land of lost content" lives up to that beginning, but what would, after that initial chill?

<u>Strong Endings</u>

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.


<u>Dull Endings</u>

433. Shantih. Repeated as here, a formal ending to an Upanishad. 'The Peace which passeth understanding' is a feeble translation of the conduct of this word.

Michael,

i like this strong ending example. What poem is it from?
~tim