This second group of poems consists of
contemporary—that is, modern and postmodern—works. The first four poems, all my
favorites, are conventional and very accessible. Only the last poem by e. e. cummings
(pen name) is avant-garde.
SILENCE
by Billy Collins
There
is the sudden silence of the crowd
above
a player not moving on the field,
and
the silence of the orchid.
The
silence of the falling vase
before
it strikes the floor,
the
silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.
The
stillness of the cup and the water in it,
the
silence of the moon
and
the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.
The
silence when I hold you to my chest,
the
silence of the window above us,
and
the silence when you rise and turn away.
And
there is the silence of this morning
which
I have broken with my pen,
a
silence that had piled up all night
like
snow falling in the darkness of the house—
the
silence before I wrote a word
and
the poorer silence now.
 |
| ...quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun. |
Billy Collins is a popular American
poet known for his easy, accessible style distinguished by wit, intelligence, sensitivity,
and depth. He draws us into everyday musings characteristically understated. Using
artful turns of a phrase, he brings to our sudden awareness recondite aspects
of familiar and commonplace objects and experiences.
In this poem, Collins tackles the intriguing
subject of silence, gently nudging us to look closely at aspects of it that elude
our conscious awareness—“the
sudden silence of the crowd above a player not moving on the field,” “the
silence of the falling vase before it strikes the floor.” Cleverly ending, the
poem prods us to reflect that the world is the poorer for the words that
populate it.
Poetry Foundation biography of Billy Collins:
—“Billy
Collins,” Poetry Foundation
THE
QUARREL by Linda Pastan
If
there were a monument
to
silence, it would not be
the
tree whose leaves
murmur
continuously
among
themselves;
nor
would it be the pond
whose
seeming stillness
is
shattered
by
the quicksilver
surfacing
of fish.
If
there were a monument
to
silence, it would be you
standing
so upright, so unforgiving,
your
mute back deflecting
every
word I say.
 |
| Drawing of the muscles back of an ecorche |
“The greatest thing by far is to be a
master of metaphor,” said Aristotle in The
Poetics. “It is a sign of genius.” Linda Pastan’s poem is in this respect touched
by genius. The poem dwells upon the most suitable metaphor for a “monument to
silence” and then declares that it is not our default images of silence that should
be memorialized in this way but rather the fraught silence that enters our interpersonal
relations.
Poetry Foundation biography of Linda
Pastan:
—“Linda
Pastan,” Poetry Foundation
WHAT
THE DOG PERHAPS HEARS by Lisel Mueller
If
an inaudible whistle
blown
between our lips
can
send him home to us,
then
silence is perhaps
the
sound of spiders breathing
and
roots mining the earth;
it
may be asparagus heaving,
headfirst,
into the light
and
the long brown sound
of
cracked cups, when it happens.
We
would like to ask the dog
if
there is a continuous whir
because
the child in the house
keeps
growing, if the snake
really
stretches full length
without
a click and the sun
breaks
through clouds without
a
decibel of effort,
whether
in autumn, when the trees
dry
up their wells, there isn't a shudder
too
high for us to hear.
What
is it like up there
above
the shut-off level
of
our simple ears?
For
us there was no birth cry,
the
newborn bird is suddenly here,
the
egg broken, the nest alive,
and
we heard nothing when the world changed.
 |
| ...we heard nothing when the world changed. |
Many copies of this poem appear online.
See, for example:
—Alison
McGhee, “Poem of the Week, by Lisel Mueller,” Alison McGhee, October 12, 2019
The poem is a sustained exposition of a
core insight: what it is like for a dog to hear what a human being cannot. The
poet engages us in a series of conjectures, delightfully intriguing—“the sound
of spiders breathing,” “roots mining the earth,” “asparagus heaving, headfirst,
into the light.” Observing accurately that, in contrast to dogs, “we heard
nothing when the world changed,” the poem does not fault us for our incapacity
but rather chides us for our inattention to the momentous transformations
ongoing all around.
Poetry Foundation biography of Lisel
Mueller:
—“Lisel
Mueller,” Poetry Foundation
STILLNESS
by Fidel de Castro
Standing
still—I never seem
To know when it comes, the trance,
I mean—I feel the stream hushed
Under
the thin glass,
The horses, motionless, clinging to
The hill, a cloud balancing the sun
In
a cotton hand.
I
hold my breath. Then from the
Mouth of a tree explodes a flock of
Birds, flight and feather weaving
A
brittle spell: beaks
Spilling crystals lighter than dew
On spider webs. So bright my sight
I
see the lilting
Notes
leap, glint, hug and tease
The air, nimble as motes, do almost
Anything but disappear: with supple
Twists
perform like
Aerialists. This miracle a canticle
To the stillness all around. And
Round
the edges of
The
sound of birds I feel a lit
Stillness deeper than of horses,
Cloud and stream, a stillness bigger
Than
love, brighter than
Light, or darker than the darkness
That moves above and under the ground—
Oh,
a stillness more
Luminous
than Death, and I feel
It breathing in myself, no longer
Standing still but walking away—
The
sunset on my back—
My pious feet stepping on the ground,
Behind me leaving no marks, no quiet
Or
the slightest sound.
 |
| ...a cloud balancing the sun in a cotton hand. |
This poem was originally published in A Doveglion Book of Philippine Poetry in English: 1910-1962 (1965), edited by Jose Garcia Villa.
A copy of the poem is in Philippine Studies. See:
—L.
M. Grow, “Scattered Felicity in Philippine Poetry,” Philippine Studies (Third Quarter 1999) 47(3):399-400
The
poem draws us into a first-person account of an experience of stillness,
sustaining our attention throughout until the closing lines. Whence derives its
drawing power?
It
could be the sincere tone, authentic sentiments, and words plainspoken yet
nuanced according to our everyday manner of musing. Pauses in the first three
lines, for example, invite us to enter into the meditative mood of the poem:
“Standing still—I never seem to know when it comes, the trance, I mean—” Gradually,
the narrative, in finely calibrated denouement, pulls away at the end: “My
pious feet stepping on the ground, behind me leaving no marks, no quiet or the
slightest sound.”
Diction
and figurative language are keenly chosen. Consider, for example, this stunning
metaphor: “Then from the mouth of a tree explodes a flock of birds…”
One
of the gems of Philippine poetry in English.
up into the
silence…
by e. e. cummings
up
into the silence the green
silence
with a white earth in it
you
will(kiss me)go
out
into the morning the young
morning
with a warm world in it
(kiss
me)you will go
on
into the sunlight the fine
sunlight
with a firm day in it
you
will go(kiss me
down
into your memory and
a
memory and memory
i)kiss
me,(will go)
 |
| Aloe (2013) by Shawn McNulty |
The poem was originally published in 50 Poems (1940).
Poetry Foundation copy of this poem:
Edward
Estlin Cummings or “e. e. cummings” is sure to remain among the most notable
poets of the twentieth century writing in English. He belongs to the vanguard
of Modernist writers in English that includes the likes of Ezra Pound, Gertrude
Stein, T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce.
Cummings
repudiated linguistic conventions of grammar, syntax, and diction, not to
mention literary conventions of form and style, to create his own idiosyncratic
poetry of image, sound, and sense that to this day continues to engage and
entertain, young readers, especially. Analogous style in the visual arts is
Cubism, which spurned academic conventions of visual representation in order to
rework images according to its own insurgent doctrine of visual deconstruction
and reconstruction. Cubism’s emergence preceded the publication of Cummings’
avant-garde poetry by a decade or so.
In
this poem “silence” is a salient motif. The word appears twice, all other terms
are themselves silent—“morning,” “sunlight,” “memory,” for example. Two motifs
in particular repeat themselves—“will go” and “kiss me.” Because the poem has been
broken into pieces and then eccentrically rebuilt, it harbors occult and
elusive meanings. It is the reader’s task—and prerogative—to tease out
plausible semantics.
Third
post in the series:
https://poetryofgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2018/11/twenty-poems-about-silence-3-of-4.html
