Eratosphere Forums - Metrical Poetry, Free Verse, Fiction, Art, Critique, Discussions Able Muse - a review of poetry, prose and art

Forum Left Top

Notices

Reply
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Unread 02-01-2001, 08:27 AM
Highlander
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
Post

This is perhaps Theodore Roethke's best poem, a poem ripe with meanings and possibilities and aching with transcendence.

As I grow older I find myself returning to it like a neophyte to a breviary, for it enters the mind (the soul, if I may) and stays there like a desperate psalm.

Surely this is one of the finest poems penned in the 20th century.

In a Dark Time

In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood--
A lord of nature weeping to a tree,
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall,
That place among the rocks--is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.


A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is--
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.


Dark,dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.

Reply With Quote
  #2  
Unread 02-01-2001, 03:33 PM
Alan Sullivan Alan Sullivan is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2000
Location: South Florida, US
Posts: 6,536
Post

Thanks for posting, Highlander. Alarming monicker. And an alarming poem. I would go as far as "finer" but "finest" might be a bit too strong a claim for me. The poem is simultaneously grandiose and distinctly mad. A healthy mind shies from that verge. If Van Gogh had written rather than painted, would he not have said such things?

A remarkable amount of formal control in this tale of a disintegrating mind, as if poetry were the last resource for order. The heavily end-stopped lines balk like frightened dogs at the veterinarian's door.

Alan Sullivan
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Unread 02-01-2001, 09:34 PM
Caleb Murdock Caleb Murdock is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: New York City
Posts: 797
Post

I think this poem serves as a good example of how poetry is different things to different people. I would never consider this melodramatic effort to be one of the best poems penned in the century. It has very little meaning to me. I hear adolescent angst in it more than anything else.

Highlander, if you would like to provide an analysis, I'd be curious to see why you think it is so good.



[This message has been edited by Caleb Murdock (edited February 01, 2001).]
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Unread 02-01-2001, 10:48 PM
Christopher Mulrooney Christopher Mulrooney is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 356
Post

Dick Shawn used to say, "Insanity is just a point of view", and how wondrously gratified I am to see Ted Roethke getting the business I get here, not to mention Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost & Jim Hayes of Killarney, Ireland.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump



Forum Right Top
Forum Left Bottom Forum Right Bottom
 
Right Left
Member Login
Forgot password?
Forum LeftForum Right


Forum Statistics:
Forum Members: 8,399
Total Threads: 21,839
Total Posts: 270,784
There are 2348 users
currently browsing forums.
Forum LeftForum Right


Forum Sponsor:
Donate & Support Able Muse / Eratosphere
Forum LeftForum Right
Right Right
Right Bottom Left Right Bottom Right

Hosted by ApplauZ Online