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Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. 35 mm slides or 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. Accessing■i the World's UMI Information since 1938 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA Order Number 882462 James Wright’s poetry of intimacy Terman, Philip S., Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1988 Copyright ©1988 by Terman, Philip S. All rights reserved. UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, M I 48106 JAMES WRIGHT'S POETRY OF INTIMACY DISSERTATION Presented In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Philip S. Terman, B.A., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 1988 Dissertation Comtttee: Approved by Anthony Libby ■\m7<J^<4 — c&U David Citino JeredithMerrin Adviser Department of English Copyright by Philip S.Terman 1988 Upon Leaving Martins Ferry The late November grass holds onto its green, layers the small hills that rise and fall like Indian mounds. The sky Is blue as the eyes of Jesus who hangs in Salvation Army windows on every main street along this Bible belt. We watched you, on video-tape, breathe In deep and slowly release the smoke, gray as the river below your hometown. Your hand twitched, the ash lengthened as you lost your self in your own words, speaking of the state I'm looking out into: / s t i l l dream o f home. We are In the same myth. And we who want to die an easy death w ill abandon our bodies to the cancer In a hospital far from home. Everybody back in Columbus Is watching the game. If we win, we'll bring down the goalposts, spill out in one body like a cult caught In a ritual, in love with each other, briefly. 11 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks very much to Jerldlth Merrln and Anthony Libby for their support, kindness, and astute comments that helped me to see my project with more clarity. My fond gratitute to my good friend David Citlno, whose open door and good faith assured me that intimacy was a subject worthy of study. To my brothers, father, and mother for their constant encouragement and love. And to the friends along the way. iii VITA November 4, 1957 Born--Cleveland, Ohio 1976 B.A., Ohio University Athens, Ohio 1981-1983 M.A., Ohio University, Teaching Associate 1984-1985 E.S.L Instructor, Migration and Refugee Resettlement Services 1983-1988 Ph.d., Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, Teaching Associate 1988 Instructor, Ohio Correctional Institution PUBLICATIONS Gambit (1986) Poem: "Bless the Children Who Pass Away" The Jo u rn a (Spring/Summer l 1987) Poems: "Upon Leaving Martins Ferry," "Baube," "My Father's Jokes" Poetry Northwest (Autumn, 1987) Poems: "Secrets," "Child of God," "My Father's Garage" The L au re l Review (Autumn, 1988) Poem: "The Brls" FIELDS OF STUDY Major Fields: American Literature, Creative Writing TABLE OF CON!ENTS DEDICATION, "UPON LEAVING MARTINS FERRY" 11 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ill VITA 1v INTRODUCTION I CHAPTER PAGE I. THE POET IN THE GRAY FLANNEL SUIT 10 II. OF SILENCE AND THE IMAGE 53 III. THE FORMS OF SENTIMENT 98 IV. THE POETRY OF THE PRESENT MOMENT 148 CONCLUSION 195 WORKS CITED 199 v Introduction James Wright said In an interview that "often, through poetry, [he] tried to find a way to restore that capacity [to feel], to keep It alive.” What ways has Wright found, and what processes has he employed to discover them? Wright Is considered by many readers and critics a major figure In the movement from modern to contemporary American poetry. It is significant, I think, that Important contemporary poets have written admiringly of his work: Mary Oliver, Robert Hass, Dave Smith, Stanley Plumly, William Matthews, and, of course, Robert Bly, to name a few. The fact that so many current poets consider Wright to be a major Influence on their own work Illustrates concretely the significance he has had and continues to have on contemporary poetry In general. This study traces his career from his firs t volume, The Green Wall, to his last, This Journey, published posthumously. In much of the Wright criticism, the tendency Is to focus In general terms on his growth as a poet, particularly on the evolution of his form. It is generally agreed upon, for example, that Wright followed the New Critical mode In writing his first two works, and drastically altered his style once after he had exposed himself to the theories of Robert Bly and the poetry of forlegn poets such as Lorca, Neruda, Vallejo, and Trakl. Studies, beginning with W.H Auden's Introduction to The Green Wail, also inevitably discuss Wright's major themes, particularly his concern for social outcasts and nature. • American poetry can be seen as developing in two very different directions, and Wright's poetry moves from one to the other: his Influences take him from Eliot and the New Critics to such poets as Whitman and Federico Garcia Lorca. Many critics have seen this movement as being one from a poetry of impersonality to one of 2 personality. This change, of course, is reflective of the larger social and historical changes from the late 50's to the early 60’s. His development, as Peter S titt has said, "could be said to parallel the development generally of our finest recent poets" (Stitt, "The Poetry of,..," p. 13). While It Is true that many of our "finest recent poets" moved from closed to open form, it Is significant to note that not all of them made that move In the same way. Wright Is representative of that generation of poets, but he also, like many of the others, developed his own unique voice and style. More specifically, many critics focus on the emotional element of his poetry, and Wright's penchant for Identifying with his subjects. Stanley Plumly goes so far as to say that "Wright Is the great empathlzer of our poetry, a master whose work as a whole has redefined the emotional life available to a poem" (p. 325). Crucial to what makes Wright's poetry different from that of other poets of his generation Is the emotional relationship Wright's speaker establishes with other characters within the poems. Robert Hass, for example, states that what "has always been a remarkable, almost singular, fact about Wright's poetry Is the way in which the suffering of other people, particularly the lost and derelict, Is actually a part of [Wright's] own emotional life" (pp. 200-201). Robert Bly agrees that what "sets Wright apart from other poets of his generation" Is his "ferocity of emotion" ("The Work of..." pp. 78-79). What intrigues many critics and readers about Wright's work Is his ability to speak directly and movingly about universal emotional concerns. Though many critics speak of Wright's ability to create emotion, none of the studies goes far enough In thoroughly exploring the nature of that emotion. What, for example, constitutes his "ferocity"? Where and when does Wright's emotion succeed and fall? How does Wright produce an effective or Ineffective emotional response? I would like to argue that Wright learns and applies different methods of expressing his emotional concerns. For example, In his firs t two volumes, his poetry Is too controlled, too much under the dominance of traditional forms. However, we see an entirely different problem by the time of “New Poems" and Two C itizens, where Wright's lack of technical control produces poems that are too direct and, ultimately, sentimental. 3 In my dissertation, I w ill argue that what constitutes Wright's "ferocity of emotion" is, to a large degree, the relationship that he attempts to establish between the speaker and what I w ill call the "other” of the poem. The "other" is that person or animal or object with whom the speaker is attempting to Identify. The Ideal relationship In many of Wright's poems is the intimate one—when the speaker attempts to empathize and make a connection with the "other." Often, the achievement of Intimacy can be possible through opposite means, either complete Identification with the other or complete accceptance of separation. The poetry of "Intimacy” Is an emotional poetry, but one that relies on the sense of the speaker attempting to communicate to, empathize with, and somehow understand or at least appreciate the object of his concern. One automatically thinks, of course, of "confessional" poetry, which I take to be more revelatory than communicative, in "confessional" poems, such as what we often find in Ginsberg, O'Hara, or the Lowell of Life Studies, the speaker seems to address not another character, but, rather, the reader in an attempt at what Alan Williamson calls a "disclosure or shock" (p.