poppies in a field
scattered gold on velvet green
an afternoon's wealth
06 April 2012
National Poetry Month: 6
Today is both Good Friday and the first night of Passover, so it seems only suitable to turn to the Psalms, a collection of ancient Hebrew poetry which (as translated in the King James Bible), has had a deep influence on English literature generally. This is also poetry that has profoundly touched, moved, and inspired people who don't normally read other poetry. Here are three versions of one of the most celebrated of these songs, Psalm 130.
From the King James Bible (1611):
A song of degrees.
Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.
I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.
My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.
Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.
And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
The next version actually predates the King James Bible. The so-called Sidney Psalter was begun by Sir Philip Sidney, who translated the first 43 Psalms before his death in battle in 1586, after which his sister, Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, revised and completed the translation of the whole Book of Psalms. Like her brother, she had a humanist education and like him worked off Latin, French, and Italian translations rather than the Hebrew originals. Their translation circulated in manuscript and was known among poets and literary connoisseurs, but it was not published until the early nineteenth century. Oxford World's Classics has recently republished the Sidney Psalter, edited with an Introduction and Notes by Hannibal Hamlin, Michael G. Brennan, Margaret P. Hannay, and Noel Kinnamon. The Introduction has a very interesting discussion of the cultural context of the translation and the Sidney siblings' reasons for choosing a wide variety of meters. You can buy a copy of the book here and luxuriate in the thought that you can so easily acquire something John Donne could only borrow in manuscript. In the second stanza, "cark" means burden.
De profundis.
From depth of grief
Where drowned I lie,
Lord, for relief
To thee I cry:
My earnest, vehement, crying, praying,
Grant quick, attentive hearing, weighing.
O Lord, if thou
Offenses mark,
Who shall not bow
To bear the cark?
But with thy justice mercy dwelleth,
And makes thy worship more excelleth,
Yea, makes my soul
On thee, O Lord,
Dependeth whole,
And on thy word,
Though sore with blot of sin defaced,
Yet surest hope hath firmly placed.
Who longest watch,
Who soonest rise,
Can nothing match
The early eyes,
The greedy eyes my soul erecteth,
While God's true promise it expecteth.
Then, Israel,
On God attend:
Attend him well,
Who still thy friend,
In kindness hath thee dear esteemed,
And often, often erst redeemed.
Now, as before,
Unchanged he
Will thee restore,
Thy state will free,
All wickedness from Jacob driving
Forgetting follies, faults forgiving.
The final version is from Robert Alter's 2007 Translation with Commentary of the Book of Psalms, scrupulously translated from the original Hebrew:
A song of ascents.
From the depths I called you, Lord.
Master, hear my voice.
May your ears listen close to the voice of my plea.
Were You, O Yah, to watch for wrongs,
Master, who could endure?
For forgiveness is Yours,
so that You may be feared.
I hoped for the Lord, my being hoped,
and for His word I waited.
My being for the Master –
more than the dawn-watchers watch for the dawn.
Wait, O Israel, for the Lord,
for with the Lord is steadfast kindness,
and great redemption is with Him.
And He will redeem Israel
from all its wrongs.
From the King James Bible (1611):
A song of degrees.
Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.
I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.
My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.
Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.
And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
The next version actually predates the King James Bible. The so-called Sidney Psalter was begun by Sir Philip Sidney, who translated the first 43 Psalms before his death in battle in 1586, after which his sister, Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, revised and completed the translation of the whole Book of Psalms. Like her brother, she had a humanist education and like him worked off Latin, French, and Italian translations rather than the Hebrew originals. Their translation circulated in manuscript and was known among poets and literary connoisseurs, but it was not published until the early nineteenth century. Oxford World's Classics has recently republished the Sidney Psalter, edited with an Introduction and Notes by Hannibal Hamlin, Michael G. Brennan, Margaret P. Hannay, and Noel Kinnamon. The Introduction has a very interesting discussion of the cultural context of the translation and the Sidney siblings' reasons for choosing a wide variety of meters. You can buy a copy of the book here and luxuriate in the thought that you can so easily acquire something John Donne could only borrow in manuscript. In the second stanza, "cark" means burden.
De profundis.
From depth of grief
Where drowned I lie,
Lord, for relief
To thee I cry:
My earnest, vehement, crying, praying,
Grant quick, attentive hearing, weighing.
O Lord, if thou
Offenses mark,
Who shall not bow
To bear the cark?
But with thy justice mercy dwelleth,
And makes thy worship more excelleth,
Yea, makes my soul
On thee, O Lord,
Dependeth whole,
And on thy word,
Though sore with blot of sin defaced,
Yet surest hope hath firmly placed.
Who longest watch,
Who soonest rise,
Can nothing match
The early eyes,
The greedy eyes my soul erecteth,
While God's true promise it expecteth.
Then, Israel,
On God attend:
Attend him well,
Who still thy friend,
In kindness hath thee dear esteemed,
And often, often erst redeemed.
Now, as before,
Unchanged he
Will thee restore,
Thy state will free,
All wickedness from Jacob driving
Forgetting follies, faults forgiving.
The final version is from Robert Alter's 2007 Translation with Commentary of the Book of Psalms, scrupulously translated from the original Hebrew:
A song of ascents.
From the depths I called you, Lord.
Master, hear my voice.
May your ears listen close to the voice of my plea.
Were You, O Yah, to watch for wrongs,
Master, who could endure?
For forgiveness is Yours,
so that You may be feared.
I hoped for the Lord, my being hoped,
and for His word I waited.
My being for the Master –
more than the dawn-watchers watch for the dawn.
Wait, O Israel, for the Lord,
for with the Lord is steadfast kindness,
and great redemption is with Him.
And He will redeem Israel
from all its wrongs.
05 April 2012
National Poetry Month: 5
For today, three short poems about stars, glittering far above us in their separate sphere, prompting reflections philosophical and ironic on their refracted connection to us:
First, by A E Housman:
Stars, I have seen them fall
But when they drop and die
No star is lost at all
From all the star-sown sky.
The toil of all that be
Helps not the primal fault;
It rains into the sea,
And still the sea is salt.
Next, by W H Auden:
The More Loving One
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That for all they care, I can go to hell.
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
And finally, by Frank O'Hara:
Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up
First, by A E Housman:
Stars, I have seen them fall
But when they drop and die
No star is lost at all
From all the star-sown sky.
The toil of all that be
Helps not the primal fault;
It rains into the sea,
And still the sea is salt.
Next, by W H Auden:
The More Loving One
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That for all they care, I can go to hell.
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
And finally, by Frank O'Hara:
Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up
04 April 2012
National Poetry Month: 4
For today, The Ruined Maid by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928; this poem is from 1866):
The Ruined Maid
"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?" –
"O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.
– "You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!" –
"Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.
– "At home in the barton you said 'thee' and 'thou,'
And 'thik oon,' and 'theas oon,' and 't'other'; but now
Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!" –
"Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.
– "Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak,
But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,
And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!' –
"We never do work when we're ruined," said she.
– "You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,
And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem
To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!"–
"True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she.
– "I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!" –
"My dear – a raw country girl, such as you be,
Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.
Oh, you can admit it: if you know something about English literature but not this particular poem, when you saw the date, and the author's name, and the title, you were probably not expecting this caustic blast of hilarity. Hardy is one of those writers (like George Eliot or Henry James) so well known for psychological acuity or deep fatalistic thought that it's always a surprise to realize how funny they are. I love the drawn out syllable ending the third line of each stanza, which to me makes it sound like some country folk ballad. I also like the superior tone and not-quite-good-enough grammar of the ruined maid. You can see why Hardy was also a great novelist, and why his novels were often condemned for their immoral (that is to say, realistic) outlook on life.
The Ruined Maid
"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?" –
"O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.
– "You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!" –
"Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.
– "At home in the barton you said 'thee' and 'thou,'
And 'thik oon,' and 'theas oon,' and 't'other'; but now
Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!" –
"Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.
– "Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak,
But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,
And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!' –
"We never do work when we're ruined," said she.
– "You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,
And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem
To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!"–
"True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she.
– "I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!" –
"My dear – a raw country girl, such as you be,
Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.
Oh, you can admit it: if you know something about English literature but not this particular poem, when you saw the date, and the author's name, and the title, you were probably not expecting this caustic blast of hilarity. Hardy is one of those writers (like George Eliot or Henry James) so well known for psychological acuity or deep fatalistic thought that it's always a surprise to realize how funny they are. I love the drawn out syllable ending the third line of each stanza, which to me makes it sound like some country folk ballad. I also like the superior tone and not-quite-good-enough grammar of the ruined maid. You can see why Hardy was also a great novelist, and why his novels were often condemned for their immoral (that is to say, realistic) outlook on life.
03 April 2012
National Poetry Month: 3
It seems only suitable to follow a Bishop with a Pope. Alexander Pope (1688-1744), generally acknowledged as the greatest English poet of his time, was unable to attend University or hold the official title of Poet Laureate, due to his Roman Catholic religion. (I suspect he was not a particularly pious man, but one who would not change himself to accommodate power.) He also struggled with debilitating health problems his whole life. His work is brilliant: diamond-bright, elegant, and searching. Sometimes I think he is undervalued these days because his clarity, balance, and intelligence put off people who think poets by their nature must be disheveled and naughty, or because the regular, rhymed nature of eighteenth-century poetry is foreign to our current tastes. Their loss, I guess.
First is an excerpt from his brilliant translation of the Iliad, which established his financial independence and allowed him to buy a house and construct his fanciful and celebrated grotto. This passage is from Book 20, when the enraged Achilles has rejoined the war after the death in battle of his beloved Patroclus:
Then fierce Achilles, shouting to the skies,
On Troy's whole force with boundless fury flies.
First falls Iphytion, at his army's head;
Brave was the chief, and brave the host he led;
From great Otrynteus he deriv'd his blood,
His mother was a Nais of the flood;
Beneath the shades of Tmolus, crown'd with snow,
From Hyde's walls, he rul'd the lands below.
Fierce as he springs, the sword his head divides,
The parted visage falls on equal sides.
With loud-resounding arms he strikes the plain;
While thus Achilles glories o'er the slain.
"Lye there Otryntides! the Trojan earth
Receives thee dead, tho' Gygae boast thy birth;
Those beauteous fields where Hyllus' waves are roll'd,
And plenteous Hermus swells with tides of gold,
Are thine no more" – Th'insulting hero said,
And left him sleeping in eternal shade.
The rolling wheels of Greece the body tore,
And dash'd their axles with no vulgar gore.
Translators no longer use heroic couplets for the classical authors, and for contemporary readers, the steady iambic pentameter and neatly matched end-rhymes can be off-putting. Partly because of Pope's other works, we tend to hear rhyme as comic or satirical, while Shakespeare's tragedies and Milton's epic have made blank verse the English-speaking standard for serious subjects. But when you read the entire epic in Pope's translation, you realize why these are called heroic couplets: the rhythm and rhyme, which sound so odd to modern ears out of context, develop a driving, inevitable force that sounds grand and elevated enough to do justice to Homer's gods and warriors.
Pope later was asked by mutual friends to help smooth over a petty disturbance at court, when without permission a flirtatious nobleman snipped off a lock of a young lady's hair. The poet had the sublime idea of describing the situation in language suitable for an epic. The Rape of the Lock is one of the most brilliant (I know, I keep using that word, but it's the right word) poems in English. The grandiose language both satirizes the frivolous young people of the court and provides genuine emotional magnificence to them; their lives are as significant to themselves (even if no one else) as those of Hector and Achilles. The Rape of the Lock is one of the two poems I most often pick up and read randomly for the sheer pleasure of their existence (the Wasteland is the other). Any passage at random would be wonderful (at least I hope so; I went back and forth on which passages to use from each of these works, and I'm not sure excerpts do them justice). This is the passage when the Baron and Belinda, future antagonists, play a game of cards, expressed as an epic battle. The game is called Ombra, and I have read that the description of the game follows all the rules, which is nice to hear because it's the kind of thing I'm not going to figure out. The term "codille" in the last line means your opponent has won:
Thus far both armies to Belinda yield;
Now to the Baron Fate inclines the Field.
His warlike Amazon her Host invades,
Th'imperial Consort of the Crown of Spades.
The Club's black Tyrant first her Victim dy'd,
Spite of his haughty mien, and bar'brous Pride;
What boots the Regal Circle on his Head,
His Giant Limbs in State unwieldy spread?
That long behind he trails his pompous Robe,
And of all Monarchs only grasps the Globe?
The Baron now his Diamonds pours apace;
Th'embroider'd King who shows but half his Face;
And his refulgent Queen, with Pow'rs combin'd,
Of broken Troops an easie conquest find.
Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, in wild disorder seen,
With Throngs promiscuous strow the level Green.
. . . . .
The Knave of Diamonds tries his wily Arts,
And wins (oh shameful Chance!) the Queen of Hearts.
At this, the Blood the Virgin's Cheek forsook,
A livid Paleness spreads o'er all her Look;
She sees, and trembles at th'approaching Ill,
Just in the Jaws of Ruin, and Codille.
First is an excerpt from his brilliant translation of the Iliad, which established his financial independence and allowed him to buy a house and construct his fanciful and celebrated grotto. This passage is from Book 20, when the enraged Achilles has rejoined the war after the death in battle of his beloved Patroclus:
Then fierce Achilles, shouting to the skies,
On Troy's whole force with boundless fury flies.
First falls Iphytion, at his army's head;
Brave was the chief, and brave the host he led;
From great Otrynteus he deriv'd his blood,
His mother was a Nais of the flood;
Beneath the shades of Tmolus, crown'd with snow,
From Hyde's walls, he rul'd the lands below.
Fierce as he springs, the sword his head divides,
The parted visage falls on equal sides.
With loud-resounding arms he strikes the plain;
While thus Achilles glories o'er the slain.
"Lye there Otryntides! the Trojan earth
Receives thee dead, tho' Gygae boast thy birth;
Those beauteous fields where Hyllus' waves are roll'd,
And plenteous Hermus swells with tides of gold,
Are thine no more" – Th'insulting hero said,
And left him sleeping in eternal shade.
The rolling wheels of Greece the body tore,
And dash'd their axles with no vulgar gore.
Translators no longer use heroic couplets for the classical authors, and for contemporary readers, the steady iambic pentameter and neatly matched end-rhymes can be off-putting. Partly because of Pope's other works, we tend to hear rhyme as comic or satirical, while Shakespeare's tragedies and Milton's epic have made blank verse the English-speaking standard for serious subjects. But when you read the entire epic in Pope's translation, you realize why these are called heroic couplets: the rhythm and rhyme, which sound so odd to modern ears out of context, develop a driving, inevitable force that sounds grand and elevated enough to do justice to Homer's gods and warriors.
Pope later was asked by mutual friends to help smooth over a petty disturbance at court, when without permission a flirtatious nobleman snipped off a lock of a young lady's hair. The poet had the sublime idea of describing the situation in language suitable for an epic. The Rape of the Lock is one of the most brilliant (I know, I keep using that word, but it's the right word) poems in English. The grandiose language both satirizes the frivolous young people of the court and provides genuine emotional magnificence to them; their lives are as significant to themselves (even if no one else) as those of Hector and Achilles. The Rape of the Lock is one of the two poems I most often pick up and read randomly for the sheer pleasure of their existence (the Wasteland is the other). Any passage at random would be wonderful (at least I hope so; I went back and forth on which passages to use from each of these works, and I'm not sure excerpts do them justice). This is the passage when the Baron and Belinda, future antagonists, play a game of cards, expressed as an epic battle. The game is called Ombra, and I have read that the description of the game follows all the rules, which is nice to hear because it's the kind of thing I'm not going to figure out. The term "codille" in the last line means your opponent has won:
Thus far both armies to Belinda yield;
Now to the Baron Fate inclines the Field.
His warlike Amazon her Host invades,
Th'imperial Consort of the Crown of Spades.
The Club's black Tyrant first her Victim dy'd,
Spite of his haughty mien, and bar'brous Pride;
What boots the Regal Circle on his Head,
His Giant Limbs in State unwieldy spread?
That long behind he trails his pompous Robe,
And of all Monarchs only grasps the Globe?
The Baron now his Diamonds pours apace;
Th'embroider'd King who shows but half his Face;
And his refulgent Queen, with Pow'rs combin'd,
Of broken Troops an easie conquest find.
Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, in wild disorder seen,
With Throngs promiscuous strow the level Green.
. . . . .
The Knave of Diamonds tries his wily Arts,
And wins (oh shameful Chance!) the Queen of Hearts.
At this, the Blood the Virgin's Cheek forsook,
A livid Paleness spreads o'er all her Look;
She sees, and trembles at th'approaching Ill,
Just in the Jaws of Ruin, and Codille.
02 April 2012
National Poetry Month: 2
It seems appropriate to follow Marianne Moore with Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979), since Moore was a longtime friend and inspiration to the younger writer. Bishop wrote a delightful and touching short memoir of their friendship, called Efforts of Affection, which is in her Collected Prose. The poem below is from Bishop's Collected Poems, published in 1983. (There are more recent editions of Bishop, but I'm linking to the ones I have.)
Exchanging Hats
Unfunny uncles who insist
in trying on a lady's hat,
– oh, even if the joke falls flat,
we share your slight transvestite twist
in spite of our embarrassment.
Costume and custom are complex.
The headgear of the other sex
inspires us to experiment.
Anandrous aunts, who, at the beach
with paper plates upon your laps,
keep putting on the yachtsmen's caps
with exhibitionistic screech,
the visors hanging o'er the ear
so that the golden anchors drag,
– the tides of fashion never lag.
Such caps may not be worn next year.
Or you who don the paper plate
itself, and put some grapes upon it,
or sport the Indian's feather bonnet,
– perversities may aggravate
the natural madness of the hatter.
And if the opera hats collapse
and crowns grow draughty, then, perhaps
he thinks what might a miter matter?
Unfunny uncle, you who wore a
hat too big, or one too many,
tell us, can't you, are there any
stars inside your black fedora?
Aunt exemplary and slim,
with avernal eyes, we wonder
what slow changes they see under
their vast, shady, turned-down brim.
– Elizabeth Bishop
Usually I don't define or link to references because I figure if you're reading this you're on the magical Interweb anyway and can look up whatever you want to, but I'll save you some time and trouble (and possibly mistaken assumptions, since my first guess at these words was wrong): anandrous is a botanical term meaning without a stamen (that is, having exclusively the female part of a flower's reproductive system), and avernal refers to Lake Avernus in Italy, famous for its supposedly deadly vapors (birds flying overhead were said to be killed by these vapors). With these terms Bishop wittily plays off on "poetic" cliches about women being like flowers or their eyes being like dark pools. I think the term "funny uncle" is not used much anymore, but the echoing "un" sounds in "unfunny uncles" maintain the wit of the phrasing. Words slide into similarity in a way that makes language seem as slippery as the social roles arbitrarily defined by assigned headgear: costume becomes custom. Bishop playfully exposes the flimsy underpinnings of what seems to us solid: not only gender roles but also the very pillars of society, which I take to be the implication of the collapsing opera hats (Society, meaning what we now call the 1%), the draughty crowns (political power) and the miters (the power of organized religion) that might not matter.
I love the use of may in "such caps may not be worn next year," where it could indicate either possibility (such caps might not be worn next year) or command (you may not do that). Fashion is another part of the flux that actually defines what we thought was stable. This playful and skeptical sense leads Bishop at the end to speculate on hidden metaphysical depths and grandeurs hiding in unlikely places: those strange aunts and uncles. (I love the way the rhythm of the last line slows down and spreads out.)
I think it's significant that Bishop mentions aunts and uncles, rather than parents, siblings, or cousins. Aunts and uncles are closely linked to us, but distant enough from our daily life or (usually) our age group to have something permanently distant and strange about them. As often with Bishop, you feel she is in a scene, but not quite of it.
Exchanging Hats
Unfunny uncles who insist
in trying on a lady's hat,
– oh, even if the joke falls flat,
we share your slight transvestite twist
in spite of our embarrassment.
Costume and custom are complex.
The headgear of the other sex
inspires us to experiment.
Anandrous aunts, who, at the beach
with paper plates upon your laps,
keep putting on the yachtsmen's caps
with exhibitionistic screech,
the visors hanging o'er the ear
so that the golden anchors drag,
– the tides of fashion never lag.
Such caps may not be worn next year.
Or you who don the paper plate
itself, and put some grapes upon it,
or sport the Indian's feather bonnet,
– perversities may aggravate
the natural madness of the hatter.
And if the opera hats collapse
and crowns grow draughty, then, perhaps
he thinks what might a miter matter?
Unfunny uncle, you who wore a
hat too big, or one too many,
tell us, can't you, are there any
stars inside your black fedora?
Aunt exemplary and slim,
with avernal eyes, we wonder
what slow changes they see under
their vast, shady, turned-down brim.
– Elizabeth Bishop
Usually I don't define or link to references because I figure if you're reading this you're on the magical Interweb anyway and can look up whatever you want to, but I'll save you some time and trouble (and possibly mistaken assumptions, since my first guess at these words was wrong): anandrous is a botanical term meaning without a stamen (that is, having exclusively the female part of a flower's reproductive system), and avernal refers to Lake Avernus in Italy, famous for its supposedly deadly vapors (birds flying overhead were said to be killed by these vapors). With these terms Bishop wittily plays off on "poetic" cliches about women being like flowers or their eyes being like dark pools. I think the term "funny uncle" is not used much anymore, but the echoing "un" sounds in "unfunny uncles" maintain the wit of the phrasing. Words slide into similarity in a way that makes language seem as slippery as the social roles arbitrarily defined by assigned headgear: costume becomes custom. Bishop playfully exposes the flimsy underpinnings of what seems to us solid: not only gender roles but also the very pillars of society, which I take to be the implication of the collapsing opera hats (Society, meaning what we now call the 1%), the draughty crowns (political power) and the miters (the power of organized religion) that might not matter.
I love the use of may in "such caps may not be worn next year," where it could indicate either possibility (such caps might not be worn next year) or command (you may not do that). Fashion is another part of the flux that actually defines what we thought was stable. This playful and skeptical sense leads Bishop at the end to speculate on hidden metaphysical depths and grandeurs hiding in unlikely places: those strange aunts and uncles. (I love the way the rhythm of the last line slows down and spreads out.)
I think it's significant that Bishop mentions aunts and uncles, rather than parents, siblings, or cousins. Aunts and uncles are closely linked to us, but distant enough from our daily life or (usually) our age group to have something permanently distant and strange about them. As often with Bishop, you feel she is in a scene, but not quite of it.
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