[lit-ideas] Re: Happy Birthday to W. S. Merwin
- From: Mike Geary <gearyservice@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2013 18:54:03 -0500
Chris writes: "But why do I hear the protagonist's 'wishing myself the good
voyage' echoed by another voice telling someone to go to hell (or, at
least, announcing almost matter of factly that the protagonist has already
entered it)."
When I first read the poem before coming to the "guard" calling the
protagonist "Lady", I had thought, that it had to be a woman -- the
language required it. Loneliness does not leap out of mirrors at men to
begin with -- it slams their fists into walls, or lays them out drunk --
whatever. The protagonist seeks escape from the life she is living, she
sets out to find it. Is rebuffed by the reality of authority, she is a
prisoner of the "real world" -- the other and hated city where she was
born, where the light crawls over the stone like flies -- that is the REAL
world OUT THERE . Her only recourse is to journey into herself, wish
herself the good voyage and leave behind all that's she valued before.
That's my response to the poem. The theme is departure -- escape, rather
-- but she faces the fact that is not possible -- she can only find what
she longs for in herself -- she is Departure's girlfriend as Chris
suggests, but departure she comes to understand is internal, not external.
Amen.
I like to compare this poem with Wm. Carlos William's DANSE RUSSE, in
which he embraces loneliness "if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
again the yellow drawn shades,--
Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?
***
The existentialists, I guess, would say that we are radically alone in our
existence even though there's no such thing as a self unto itself. Or
maybe I'm the only one who would say that. We create our own selves out of
the world we're taught and come to experience. Let me get outta here
before I get into trouble.
Mike Geary
On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 2:22 AM, <cblists@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On 1-Oct-13, at 11:57 PM, Mike Geary wrote:
>
> I've read and re-read this poem hundreds of times, but still I cannot
>> guess why Merwin calls it "Departure's Girlfriend" -- why girlfriend??
>> Any suggestions?
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 1, 2013 at 4:32 PM, Mike Geary <gearyservice@xxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote:
>>
>
> One of my favorite poets. Love this one: Departure's Girlfriend
>>
>
> Thanks for this, Mike - it has become not only one of my favourite poems,
> but also iconic.
>
> At first I thought, 'Ah yes, one of those clever poet johnies' [no points
> for guessing what author's works were included in the stack of books I
> brought back from a recent visit to that 'green and pleasant land'].
>
> He's merely playing with word order - 'Departure's Girlfriend' for
> 'Girlfriend's Departure' - and the poem is no doubt about, or at any rate
> was triggered by, some 'affair of the heart'.
>
> But why does that 'merely' creep in there? Am I not being more than a
> little facile?
>
> If I'm willing to play with transposition to seek explanation, why stop at
> the title, and for that matter, word order?
>
> And so the play begins ...
>
> Substitute 'day' for 'night', 'countryside' for 'city', 'some one' for 'no
> one', female' for 'male' (the latter two transpositions are explicitly, in
> different ways, practised by the poet himself) ...
>
> Is everything allowed? (No!)
>
> But why do I hear the protagonist's 'wishing myself the good voyage'
> echoed by another voice telling someone to go to hell (or, at least,
> announcing almost matter of factly that the protagonist has already entered
> it).
>
> Chris Bruce,
> getting carried away
> on the tide of
> language on holiday
> - or is that
> language's holy day?
> - in Kiel, Germany
>
> ------------------------------**------------------------------**------
> To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
> digest on/off), visit
> www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.**html<http://www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html>
>
Other related posts:
