,1 .Hemorable American Poet

THE OF LOUISE BOGAN*

By

wo of the charges most frequently she writes out of the severest lyrical tradi·· leveled against poetry by women are tion in English. Her real spiritual ancestors T lack of range-in subject matter, in are Campion, Jonson, the anonymous Eliz­ emotional tone-and lack of a sense of hu­ abethan song writers. The word order is mor. And one could, in individual instances usually direct, the plunge straight into the among writers of real talent, add other subject, the music rich and subtle (she has esthetic and moral shortcomings: the spin­ one of the best ears of our time), and the ning-out; the embroidering of trivial subject invariably given its due and no themes; a concern with the mere surfaces more. As a result, her poems, even the less of life-that special province of the femi­ consequential, have a finality, a comprehen­ nine talent in prose-hiding from the real siveness, the sense of being all of a piece, agonies of the spirit; refusing to face up to that we demand from the short poem at its what existence is; lyric or religious postur­ best. ing; running between the boudoir and the altar, stamping a tiny foot against God; or HE BODY of her complete poetic work is lapsing into a sententiousness that implies T not great, but the "range," both emo­ the author has re-invented integrity; car­ tional and geographical, is much wider than rying on excessively about Fate, about might be expected from a lyric poet. There time; lamenting the lot of the woman; ca­ is the brilliant (and exact) imagery of her terwauling; writing the same poem about New England childhood; there is also the fifty times, and so on. highly formal world of Swift's Ireland; the But Louise Bogan is something else. rich and baroque background of Italy called True, a very few of her earliest poems bear up in the evocative «Italian Morning." the mark of fashion, but for the most part And, of course, her beloved Austria. Her best lyrics, unlike so much American work, have the sense of a civilization behind them THEODORE ROETHKE, one of our own alumni (A.B. '29, A.M. '36) and a distinguished poet with five pub­ -and this without the deliberate piling up lished \'olumes of verse to his credit, was the 1960 Hop­ of exotic details, or the taking over of a spe­ wood L~cturer and g:t\'e the accompanying estimate of cial, say Grecian, vocabulary. Louise Bogan's poetry. ~ow Professor of English at the University of Washington, Mr. Ro~thke has also taught Invariably these effects are produced at , Pennsylvania State University, and with great economy, with the exact sense of Bennington College. Recognition of his standing as a diction that is one of the special marks of poet has corne to him in the form of the Tietjens prize, the Levinson prize, the Pulitzer prize, and an award her style. Even out of context, their power, from the American Academy of ;\rts and Letters. He is a I believe, is evident. Thus, in "Hypocrite member of the ;l;ational Institute of Arts and Letters, Swift," a curious tour de force which in­ kls twice held Guggenheim fellowships, and in 1955 was Fulbright lecturer in Italy. corporates many actual phrases from Swift's :'>!iss Bogan's publishecs, Xoonday Press, of ~ew York, Journal to Stella, there suddenly occurs the have graciously permitted us to make copious quota­ st:mza: tions from her works. "Copyright, 1960, by the Regents of The Cni"ersit¥ On 'val!s at court, long gilded mirrors gaze. of :'>'1 ichi;pn. The parquet shines; outside the snow hIls deep. (3 THE QC.\!ZTERLY REVIEW

Ve nliS, the \1lIses stare a!Jo\·e the m:\Ze. IllS is only one, :lnd by no means the Now sleep. T best, of :\li~s Bogan's poems on time, For one terrifying instant we are within on change, all the cessation of timc. E\'Cll in Swift's mind, in cighteenth-century Irc­ her earliest work, ~he seems to be seeking a hnd, :;haring the glitter, the horror and moment when things are caught, fixed, fro­ glory of his madness. zen, seen, for an instant, under the eye of Again, from the poem, "1 talian l\10rn- eternity.

THEODORE ROETHKE jng," the lines: A vcry early piecc, "Decoration," printed The big magnolia, like a hand, in her first book, BoLly of This Death, but Repeats our flesh. (0 bred to love, not in the Collected, is, 1 believe, a begin­ Gathered to silence I) In a hnd ning, a groping toward this central theme: Thus garnished, there is time enough .-\ macaw preens upon :I branch outspread To pace the rooms where painted swags \\'ith j;:wtlry ot seed. He's ,leat :ind mute. o t fruit and flower in pride depend, The sky behind him splits like gorgeous fruit li~ht Stayed as we are not. .\nd claw-like Ie-a \·cs clutch till it has bled. The r:\\v dia~oJ1:d bounty at his wings The "garnishcd" and the "paintcd Scrapes ull the e,·c color too chafed. He he~lts s\\'ags" are triumphs of exactitude in lan­ .\ flattered tail out against gauzy heats; guage-suggest the elabor:1.te background He has the frustrate l,'ok of chcated kin([s. without recoursc to merely D2roque dicion. :\nJ :tIl the simple c\

:\ gillyflo\Ver spans its litt1t: height site «Decoration" in the first book, is a And lo\'ers with their mouths press out their grief. breakthrough to great poetry, the whole The binl bns wide his striped regality piece welling up from the unconscious, dic­ Prismatic, while ag:linst a sky hrcath-white tated as it were: ..\ crystal tree lets f:lll a crystal Ic:!f. This is a vulnerable poem, in spite of I h:ld come to the h'Juse, in :! cave of trees, certain felicities (the fine "and all the sim- Facing a sheer sky.

LOUISE BOGAN pIe evening passes by," for instance). But Everything moved,-a hell hung ready to strike, the uncharitable might say hardly beyond Sun and reflection wheeled by. magazine verse. ;\nd even though 1\1 iss Bo­ gan disanns us with her title, the poem re­ \Vhen the bare eyes were before me "'\nd the hissing hair, mains 100 static, not very interesting syntac­ Held up at it window, scen through a door. tically, and the tlnalline plays upon one of The stiff hald eyes, the serpents on the forehead the cliches of the twenties: "A crystal tree Formed in the air. lets fall a crystal leaf." Still, the scene is looked at ste::dil},' and closely; the poem is This is a dead scene forever now. what it is. ?\othing will ever stir. The end will never brighten it more than this, ,'OTHER carly piece, «Statue and the ~or the Din hlur. X Rrds," is already a much betteJ' poem on essentially the same theme. However, The w:Her will always bll, and will not bll, the «:\'lcdusa," printed on the page oppo- A.nd the tipped bell make no sound, 16

The grJSS will always be growing for hay skill the hortatory tone, the command­ Deep on the ground. from which so much bogus poetry often re­ sults. And I shall stand here like a shadow Come, break with time, Under the great balanced day, You who were lorded My eyes on the yellow dust, that was lifting in By a clock's chime the wind, So ill afforded. And does not drift away. If time is allayed Now, what does this poem mean?-in Be not afraid. final terms? It could be regarded, simply, as a poem of hallucination-a rare enough I shall break, if I will. thing-that maintains its hold on the Break, since you must. Time has its fill, reader from the very opening lines to the Sated with dust. end. But we are told some other things, Long the clock's hand with the repetitiousness of obsession: "I Burned like a brand. had come to the house, in a cave of trees": the house itself is in a cave, a womb within Take the rocks' speed a womb, as it were. But notice: ((facing a And Earth's heavy measure. sheer sky"-obviously the "scene" is being Let buried seed played against a backdrop of heaven, of Drain out time's pleasure, eternity, with everything moving yet not Take time's decrees. moving-"the bell hung ready to strike." Come, cruel ease. Then the terrifying moment: "the bare Notice the remarkable shift in rhythm in eyes," "the hissing hair," of the anima, the the last stanza, with the run-on lines that l'v1edusa, the man-in-the-woman, mother­ pick up the momentum of the poem. \Ve her mother, possibly-again "held up at a are caught up in the earth's whole move­ VJindaw," ((seen through a door": certainly ment; I am reminded, perhaps eccentri­ feminine symbols. And notice, "the stiff cally, of \Vordsworth's bald eyes, the serpents on the forehead No motion has she now, no force; formed in the air"-in erectus, in other She neither hears nor sees; words. Rolled round in earth's diurnal course The last three stanzas bring us the self­ 'Vith rocks, and stones, and trees. revelation, the terrible finality of the ulti­ In this instance, I feel one poem supports, mately traumatic experience. I shan't labor gives additional credence, to 'the other. the interpretation further, except-why Yet Miss Bogan does not rest with that "yellow dust"? To me, it suggests the sul­ effect. There is a terrible irony in "Let phurous fires of hell, here under the sheer buried seed/drain out time's pleasure." sky of eternity. Then the acceptance that all humans must I suggest that this is a great lyric and in make: "Take time's decrees." The last line an area of experience where most writers remains for me a powerful ambiguity. Is are afraid to go--or are incapable of going. she like Cleopatra, or Keats, asking for easeful death, or the cruel ease of unaware­ ISS BOGAN is a contender, an opponent, ness, of insentience, of the relief from time M an adversary, whether it be the de­ that old age provides? There is, of course, vouring or overpo\vering mother, or time no final answer, and none is necessary. itself. And she can quarrel with her dae­ mon, her other self, as in "Come, Break NE DEFINITION of a serious lyric-it \Vith Time." Here she manages with great O may come from - POETRY OF LOUISE BOGAN would C11l it a rcnlarion of a tragic per­ and this, at the start of a poem. She an­ ~onality, Behind the Bogan poems is a nounces boldly but not portentously, and ,,'oman intem:e, proud, strong-willed, never \ve believe. Notice, too, the mastery of the hysterical or silly; who scorns the open un­ epithet-the cock's "unphceable cry,," the abashed caterwaul so usual with the love "scrawled vine," the rose-branch "red to poet, male or female; who never writes a the thorns." And then the final triumph serious poem until there is a genuine "up­ of the last image, upon which everything welling" from the unconscious; who shapes hinges: "The thin hound's body arched emotion into an inevitable-seeming, an en­ against the snow." durable, form. But what has come to proof? We are not For love, passion, its complexities, its told, explicitly, nor should we be. Inval;­ tensions, its betrayals, is one of Louise Bo­ ably, the final experience, however vivid and gan's chief themes. And this love, along exact the imagery, comes to us obliquely. It with marriage itself, is a virtual battle­ stays with us, can be brooded upon, and ground. But the enemy is respected, the brought, finally, into our own lives. other is there, given his due; the experi­ This obliquity, at once both Puritan and ence, whatever its difficulties, shared. feminine, brings Louise Bogan close, de­ Thus, in "Old Countryside": spite differences in temperament, to Emily Beyond the hour we counted rain that fell Dickinson and to l'vlarianne :'VIoore. None On the slant shutter, all has come to proof. quails before the eye of eternity; their The summer thunder, like a wooden bell, world is their own, sharply defined. If oth­ Rang in the storm above the mansard roof, ers enter it, the arrival, the meeting, is on their terms. And mirrors cast the cloudy day along The attic floor; wind made the clapboards creak, ANY of the best Bogan poems in this You braced ag:Jinst the wal1 to make it strong, M vein are of such complexity and A shell against your cheek. depth that the excerpt is virtually impossi­ ble, particularly since lvliss Bogan often Long since, we pulled brown oak-leaves to the ground employs the single developed image with In :J winter of dry trees; we heard the cock usually at least two levels of meaning. And Shout its unplaceable cry, the axe's sound often, within a very short space, she effects Delay a moment after the axe's stroke. an almost intolerable tension, a crescendo in rhythm, as in "Men Loved \Vholly Be­ Far back, we saw, in the stillest of the year, yond \Visdom"; or builds up the theme The scrawled vine shudder, and the rose-branch powerfully, as in the remarbble "Feuer­ ~ow . Nacht," and then takes a chance with a gen­ Red to the thorns, and, sharp as sight can bear, eralization without losing the momentum The thin hound's body arched against the snow. of the poem: ~ This, it need hardly be said, is typical To touch at the sedge Bogan: the concern with time, the setting And then run tame put dO\vn with great exactitude, the event Is a broken pledge. re-created and then looked back upon-the The leaf-shaped fhme '.vhole thing vivid in the mind's eye, in the Shears the bark piled for winter, memory. The details are no mere accretion, The grass in the stall. but are developed with a cumulative sur­ Sworn to lick at a little, prise and the power of great art. It has burned all. ::\otice the oracuhr, almost Shakespear­ Some of her best pieces begin with the ean finality of "all h:ls come to proof"- object perceived, as it were, for an instant, 13 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW

and the image remembered, fixed in the :YIind" to be a masterpiece, a poem that mind unforgettably. could be set beside the best work of the However, she is not, as I have said, a Elizabethans: poet of the immediate moment, as say, Henceforth, from the mind, Lawrence, but of the time after, when For your whole joy, just spring things come into their true focus, into the Such joy :lS you m:lY find resolution, the ti nal perspective. Listen to In any earthly thing, ((Roman Fauntain": And every time and pbce \-Vill take your thought for grace. Up from the bronze, I saw "Vater without a flaw Henceforth, from the tongue, Rush to its rest in air, From shallow speech alone, Reach to its rest, and fall. Comes joy you thought, when young, \-Vould wring you to the bone, Bronze of the hlackest shade, \-Vould pierce you to the heart An element nun-made, And spoil its stop and st:lrt. Shaping upright the bare Clear gouts of water in air. Henceforward, from the shell, \Vherein you heard, and wondered 0, as with arm and hammer, At oceans like a bell Still it is good to strive So far from ocean sundered­ To beat out the image whole, A smothered· sound th:tt sleeps To echo the shout and stammer Long lost within lost deeps, "Vhen full-gushed waters, alive, Strike on th~ fountain's bowl "Vill chime you change and hours, After the air of summer. The shadow of increase, For me, the opening lines are one of the Will sound you flowers great felicities of our time: the thing put Born under troubled peace­ down \';:ith an ultimate exactness, absolutely Henceforth, henceforth as it is. Perhaps the two appositives Will echo sea and earth. ((Bronze of the blackest shadel An element And certainly, "Song," "Homunculus," man-made" in the next stanza' are a bit and "Kept," at the very least, are among ((written"; but ((gouts of water" saves our best short lyrics. We are told: everything. Nor do I care much for the Time for the pretty clay, evocative outcry-and the arm and ham­ ~t Time for the straw, the wood. mer image. Y the poem resolves itself The playthings of the young with characteristic candor. \Ve have come a Get broken in the pby, long way in a short space. Get hroken, as they should. I believe this poem will stay in the lan­ And, in terms of personal revelation, guage: its opening alone demands immor­ ((The Dream" might be regarded as a later tality. Yet it exists, too, as a superb piece of companion piece to "~'ledusa.)) In some of observation; as a phallic poem; as a poem these last poems, as "After the Persian," about the nature of the creative act in the ('Song for the Last Act," the rhythms, the no-longer young artist. music, are richly modulated, highly styl­ ized, grave and slow. ~liss Bogan is not N THE last lines of this piece, we hear the repe3.ting herself, but moving into ~mothcr accent of the hter \vork: a tone of resig­ I world. There is no lessening of her powers. nation, an accept;1nce of middle age, a com­ ment, often, on the ironies of circumstance. FI;-

All things remain, best American work is. Her poems can be I can tell you, this is true. read and reread: they keep yielding new meanings, as all good poetry should. The Though burned down to stone ground beat of the great tradition can be Though lost from the eye, heard, with the necessary subtle variations. I can tell you, and not lie,­ Bogan is one of the true inheritors. Her Save of peace alone. poems create their own reality, and demand The imagery in some of the last poems not just attention, but the emotional and is less specific, yet still strongly elemental; spiritual response of the whole man. Such we have, I think, what Johnson called the a poet will never be popular, but can and grandeur of generality. They are timeless, should be a true model for the young. And impersonal in a curious way and objective the best work will stay in the language as -not highly idiosyncratic as so much of the long as the language survives.

Reprinted from ALUMNUS QUARTERLY REVIEW December 3, 1960, VoL LXVII, No. 10