I'd argue I was not reading the first poem "literally," but never mind. I'm glad you posted "Imperial Adam" and I will definitely be reading more of Hope.
Shall we be devilish and subject this master to the workshop treatment? Are the following phrases in "Imperial Adam" above critique?
Imperial Adam, naked in the dew,
Felt his brown flanks and found the rib was gone
Puzzled he turned and saw where, two by two,
The mighty spoor of Jahweh marked the lawn.
[I'd vote for "touched" over "felt" and suggest
that that "mighty spoor of Jahweh" just might be over-the-top.]
Then he remembered the mysterious sleep,
The surgeon fingers probing at the bone,
The voice so far away, so rich and deep:
"It is not good for him to live alone."
[The concept of "surgeon" would have been unknown to the first human being, who is doing the remembering here. Should that matter? Should "surgeon" be used as an adjective? Discuss among yourselves!]
Turning once more, he found Man's counterpart
In tender parody breathing at his side.
He knew her at first sight, he knew by heart
Her allegory of sense unsatisfied.
[Great stuff. As a female, I take a just a little umbrage at the idea of Eve's being the parody of the first male, however tender. Would not a more concrete word than "allegory" be better here as well? I know Adam was naming animals and all, but I doubt if he was making up allegories or thinking in those terms. Art comes after the fall.]
The pawpaw drooped its golden breasts above
Less generous than the honey of her flesh;
The innocent sunlight showed the place of love;
The dew on its dark hairs winked crisp and fresh.
[Uh, oh. The pawpaw tree has breasts. A Joyce Kilmerism.]
This plump gourd severed from his virile root
She promised on the turf of Paradise
Delicious pulp of the forbidden fruit;
Sly as the snake she loosed her sinuous thighs,
[If someone here rhymed "Paradise" with "thighs"--Caleb, for instance--you can bet there would be quite an outcry. As there would for Hope's many 11-syllable lines. Is there something wrong with the way the first stanza has been typed? It seems to be hanging there, ungrammatically.]
And waking, smiled up at him from the grass;
Her breasts rose softly and he heard her sigh.
From all the beasts whose pleasant task it was
In Eden to increase and multiply
Adam had learned the jolly deed of kind:
He took her in his arms and there and then,
Like the clean beasts, embracing from behind,
Began in joy to found the breed of men.
[Enjambment between the stanzas! But I like enjambment. Sex as a "jolly deed"? Veddy good, sir, now shall I wash your dick for you? Do animals perform deeds?]
Then from the spurt of seed within her broke
Her terrible and triumphant female cry,
Split upward by the sexual lightning stroke.
It was the beasts now who stood watching by:
[Lose the "and" in L2; use a comma instead. How is it that her cry emanates from his spurt? Hot news, guys: the female orgasm doesn't depend on your spurt. Not sure about that "lightning stroke" image. Love the last line of the stanza.]
The gravid elephant, the calving hind,
The breeding bitch, the she-ape big with young
Were the first gentle midwives of mankind;
The teeming lioness rasped her with her tongue;
[Evocative, yes. The beasts teaching the human woman how to give birth. I hope she didn't lift the babe up by the nape with her mouth, though.]
The proud vicuna nuzzled her as she slept
Lax on the grass; and Adam watching too
Saw how her dumb breasts at their ripening wept,
The great pod of her belly swelled and grew,
[Hey, look, knucklehead, Eve's breasts ain't dumb!]
And saw its water break, and saw, in fear,
Its quaking muscles in the act of birth,
Between her legs a pigmy face appear,
And the first murderer lay upon the earth.
[Whoa! Here's the sock-knocking-off part. I love the word "pigmy" though it does make one wonder if a word used primarily to describe a phenotype of human that would come later in history belongs in Eden, or east of it. I'd vote for keeping it anyway. "Pigmy" also means small and elfin, and here it connotes "evilly elfin."]
Have I been evilly critical? If anything, I wanted to give some hope to the victims of workshop critiques. Here is a celebrated poet, who wrote a vastly interesting, "masterly" poem -- and yet imperfections can be found.
[This message has been edited by Kate Benedict (edited 11-17-2000).]
[This message has been edited by Kate Benedict (edited 11-17-2000).]
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