ModPo 2013 #15 Glaucium Fimbrelligerum and new concepts of beauty: On Doolittle's Sea Poppies

Glaucium Fimbrillegerum image from biolib.de (creative commons). 

Sea Poppies

BY H. D.
Amber husk
fluted with gold,
fruit on the sand
marked with a rich grain,

treasure
spilled near the shrub-pines
to bleach on the boulders:

your stalk has caught root
among wet pebbles
and drift flung by the sea
and grated shells
and split conch-shells.

Beautiful, wide-spread,
fire upon leaf,
what meadow yields
so fragrant a leaf
as your bright leaf?

________________________

I was wondering why we were taking up two very similar poems (Sea Rose and Sea Poppies) and I was struck by the question in the video discussion about whether "Sea Poppies" is an instance in a movement working out a program, a formula of sorts? And was it possible to remove valuation/ interpretation from language?

"Language that is hard and clear" (from the imagist manifesto) goes against the nature of language. While specificity is needed in some language, language in itself is a powerful and living thing. It is a frame and it requires at least two participants for it to exist.

I think the imagist movement doesn't eliminate valuation or interpretation (while it attempts to) but it does succeeds in defining  new aesthetic. It points to new possibilities, new symbols of what could be beautiful and not what is conventionally beautiful. That in itself is a great breakthrough. But yes, I agree, it is overly ambitious to aspire for a transparent language (if there even is such a thing).

I go back to one of my favorite poems, "Ars Poetica", by Archibald MacLeish. "A poem should be equal to:/ Not true." While MacLeish is known to be a Modernist poet, his "manifesto" on poetry touches on the imagist "hard and clear, never blurred or indefinite." I don't think it means the same thing, though. MacLeish talks about presenting what is without confusing it with "truth" while the imagist manifesto of producing poetry that is "hard and clear" which could mean presenting "what is" using the most economic means and using "particulars exactly and not deal in vague generalities." "Equal to" doesn't demand the elimination of blurriness or the indefinite. It just deals with what is before the poet. It might be an image.

Ultimately, poetry is a conversation. I like the new avenues of conversation that the imagists bring but I am excited to explore how the conversation has evolved over time.

Note: I am currently taking a course on Coursera.org called Modern and Contemporary American Poetry taught by Al Filreis of the University of Pennsylvania. I will be posting my thoughts on the course discussions here.

ModPo 2013 #14 Orphium Frutescens and the exotic, on Doolittle's "Sea Rose"

Note: I am currently taking a course on Coursera.org called Modern and Contemporary American Poetry taught by Al Filreis of the University of Pennsylvania. I will be posting my thoughts on the course discussions here.

Image from strangewonderfulthings.com

Sea Rose

BY H. D.

Rose, harsh rose,
marred and with stint of petals,
meagre flower, thin,
sparse of leaf,

more precious
than a wet rose
single on a stem—
you are caught in the drift.

Stunted, with small leaf,
you are flung on the sand,
you are lifted
in the crisp sand
that drives in the wind.
Can the spice-rose
drip such acrid fragrance
hardened in a leaf?

----------------------------

Here I am on week 3! I really enjoyed the video discussion on Sea Rose. Twenty-two minutes on the sparse rose by H.D! I liked the contrast with the American Beauty rose. I especially loved that last line from the video on the "bullshit analogies between the social/ economic and nature" springing from the famous Rockefeller quote on beauty created out of sacrifice. 

With the rise of imagism, there is a direct rejection of the conventional metaphors, all that are taken for granted. It is easy to bring up a rose and it automatically creates an association with beauty, delicacy, love. Even today, that is evident (flower shops still make tons of money on Valentine's day even here in the Philippines). 

My question, though, deals with how one destruction of metaphor brings up a new metaphor (that will probably need destroying later on!). By turning the tables on the conventional American Beauty rose, H.D. praises the Sea Rose as it is: its hardiness, its sparseness, its acrid (vs. the savory and sweet) fragrance. What one doesn't automatically get is that the Sea Rose is actually a rare breed. While it is hardy and can survive on the shores of coastal South Africa, it is considered an exotic plant. Taken out of its natural environment, a Sea Rose will not survive without manual (and careful) intervention since it doesn't pollinate without the buzzing of the African carpenter bee. Neither will it survive in warmer climates (anything above 20 degrees centigrade). 

By rejecting the American Beauty rose, H.D. raises up the supposedly lowly Sea Rose and with it, exoticism. "Stunted, sparse of leaf, flung on the sand," in contrast with the lush and sweet-smelling roses of convention, what H.D. fails to mention is that the Sea Rose is hard to come by. Given this, it really is a metaphor of the imagism of H.D.'s time, something that is still emerging and definitely not commonplace.

Does this mean, like Dickinson ahead of her, that H.D. is pushing for the rare, the effortful, the difficult, thus isolating poetry from the common man? 

Seen from a 2013 lens, I also see the Sea Rose as a metaphor for beauty (and poetry--using meta language) that is rooted in its native shores. It is not "cultured," it is not an exotic that is put on a pedestal to be gawked at. The Sea Rose thrives in its environment. Even if it is harsh, sparse, acrid, it does what it does without being ornamental. It survives.

Note: I am currently taking a course on Coursera.org called Modern and Contemporary American Poetry taught by Al Filreis of the University of Pennsylvania. I will be posting my thoughts on the course discussions here.