Many of you have no doubt read or heard about today’s poem: “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats. A method in my madness brings Yeats’ poem to you following last week’s poem, “Last Time Unknown.” In no way do I compare myself with Yeats; however, I noticed that my recent poem bears some modest resemblance to Yeats’ work. Again, I am not putting myself even in the same breath as this giant of poetry; I simply noticed an echo down the decades between his poem and mine – a meek echo to be sure, but none the less, a whisper of similarity.
Now that I’ve put forth my humility in offering Yeats’ work, let’s have a look at a couple of “echoes” between Yeats’ masterpiece and my attempt to capture some of the same themes. First, “things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,” says in a few words what “Last Time Unknown” takes much longer to say with its images of things ending; yet, the point is the same – no matter how hard we try to construct certainty in our lives, this certainty “will not hold.” Another example occurs in the “beast” reference near or at the end of each poem. Surely, when I wrote, those words must have resonated down the years, packed away in my memory, only to resurrect in this current poem.
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Background:
When I began to work on “Last Time Unknown” (see last week’s post), I had memory fragments of words that seemed familiar to me in that poem. Words like “ending time,” “revelation,” “time unfolds,” and most importantly, “rough heart of unknown /slouching toward us, a wild old beast.” Those words, “slouching,” and “beast” brought on a sense of déjà vu. I should know where I had heard them. After I finished the poem, it hit me. Of course! Yeats and his immortal poem – though I had to search the title. Then there was the memory of a book I once read by Joan Didion, Slouching Toward Bethlehem, where she, too, borrows from Yeats’ poem.
What happens when one artist sees or hears preceding artistic endeavors, however vague the sensations maybe? What mysterious dynamic is at work? Could it be simple memory, maybe as far back as grade school or high school wherein we read (voluntarily or by force) the poems of masters? Could some cosmic energy actually be connecting us to them in some etheric sense?
In the introduction to an epic poem I’m writing I speak about poetry resembling whale song. Whales sing for the joy of it, just as poets often write for the same reason. Extrapolating from that idea, I suggest that just as whale song once sung does not belong to the singing whale, but rather resonates and ripples out through ocean many miles and is heard by a multitude of sea creatures. Similarly, once the poet releases her “song” to the world, she ceases to own it; rather, the poem’s words and phrases are picked up by readers who emerge with their own meanings, carrying on the music of the original work – a song rolling on.
Exploration #1: Have you ever written or composed anything that has the déjà vu experience spoken about above? If not, why not press a bit harder, examine your own creative work, and look for echoes of other artists that preceded you? If not you, then perhaps another artist that you appreciate, i.e., attempt to identify predecessor influences on the current artist of your choice.
Exploration #2: Is it possible to find additional similarities between “Second Coming” and “Last Time Unknown”?
Exploration #3: Would you be interested in seeing more poems by the masters in these Monday poetry posts in addition (or in place of) my attempts at this art form?
Your humble poet Jack Pine Savage
1. I try to write like P.G. Wodehouse. A teaching assistant in college once told me my sentences were Hemingway-esque. I don't know if she was complimenting their incisiveness, or critiquing their brevity. Shakespeare would be a good one to copy, except he's inimitable.
ReplyDelete2. Your poem ends on a hopeful, or at least a cautionary note. Yeats' poem ends with foreboding of a coming anti-Christ. I read a few analyses of the poem on-line by well known Ivy League critics who praise the imagery of the poem but are at a loss to say what the heck it means.
3. Yes. It's always fun to read the classics interspersed with your work.
I had long thought that reading many books, poems, prose would threaten my unique imagination rather than give rise to it, that in some creative moment I'd subconsciously plagiarize something I had read and name it my own only to one day have someone glaringly point that out and humiliate me. I don't recall that happening yet, but I have repeated myself on occasion, recognizing some turn of phrase I had used before ... 'easily' springs to mind, and that only because someone teased me about it, happening in succession over the many years. Good thing I didn't write it.
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