[stylist] Exhibit B

[John Lee Clark]

Lori:

Universal, yes, but not quite in the sense you mean.  Usually, a poet would
mention why she is sad or in pain or going through grief--such as a recent
poem I read that also used autumn as a metaphor, but it talked about the
poet's mother dying of cancer, like hair falling the same with leaves
falling, etc.  But this poem is different in that it doesn'[t offer any
details about why life is so painful.  Autumn itself can hardly be painful,
leaves can hardly be thought of as hopes in and of themselves.  No, Autumn
represents something, and the leaves representing hopes are about real
hopes--but hopes for what?  

This is a good example of a poem that avoids identification on purpose.
Such poems are universal, yes, but they tend to come from poets who are
talking about something quite specific yet they don't want to say what it
is.  So in this way, there's a blank line for you to fill in.  For the whole
equation to make sense, that blanki line has to be filled in with a specific
item.  Why?  Because a general thing cannot fit in the blank and make the
poem accomplish its equation.  Why not?  Because the poem says life is so
painful, fate is involved, hopes are falling away . .  So if you put
something like your birthday or apple pie or a job in that blank, it's not
going to make sense because an apple pie is not such a great hope, your
birthday, though it was fate that decided its date, is not something you'd
"blame"' on fate or consider as fateful on this scale, and though losing a
job may be bad and though looking for a job is a real hope, it's hard to
match this up with the profound language of the poem.

So this poem would speak more to those who have such fate, something
declining or going away, that causes a lot of pain.  If you're a reader
without any such thing, the poem will not speak to you as the poet intended
it to speak.  

War poems are full of such blanks.  Universal, yes, but without details, yet
the language makes it obvious just what kind of things you can imagine
filling in the blanks.  

The poem, if we didn't know the poet was blind, could be just as well about
deafness, about aging, about cancer, about starvation at Camp
Auschwitz--about any number of major, fateful things that work in a process
in the same way Autumn does.  

John

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of LoriStay at aol.com
Sent: Sunday, April 05, 2009 7:32 PM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [stylist] Exhibit B

this is a lovely poem.   if you hadn't said so, i would not have thought it 
had anything to do with blindness.   it's more universal.
Lori 
> 
> >
> >AUTUMN.
> >
> >     Oh Autumn, sweet sad Autumn queen,
> >       With robe of golden brown,
> >     Our hearts are bowed with grief and pain,
> >       As each leaf flutters down.
> >
> >     In every drooping flow'ret,
> >       In every leafless tree,
> >     By warbling birds deserted,
> >       We find some trace of thee.
> >
> >     Thou'rt lovely, oh, so lovely,
> >       And yet how brief thy stay,
> >     Why is it all things beautiful
> >       Must droop and fade away?
> >
> >     All, all thy gorgeous painted leaves,
> >       With colors bright and gay,
> >     Were touched by nature's magic brush,
> >       Then rudely cast away.
> >
> >     And thus our dearest hopes are crushed,
> >       By fate's relentless will,
> >     Like withered leaves they pass away--
> >       But peace, sad heart, be still.
> >
> >     Thou too must breast the adverse wind,
> >       Be wildly tempest-tossed,
> >     Perhaps when thou art hushed in death,
> >       Thou'lt meet the loved and lost.
> >
> >     But for this sweetly, solemn thought
> >       That thrills us with delight,
> >     This life, so marred by grief and pain,
> >       Could never seem so bright.
> >
> >     Then welcome, sweet, sad Autumn days,
> >       Though brief the hallowed reign,
> >     For every smile must have its tear,
> >       And every joy its pain.
> >
> >
> 




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