Twenty Poems about Silence (2 of 4) – Analysis and Commentary

First post in the series:

https://poetryofgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2018/05/twenty-poems-about-silence-1-of-4.html

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.

See: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/39

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:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/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

See: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/181124

“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:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/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:

https://alisonmcghee.com/2019/10/12/poem-of-the-week-by-lisel-mueller-4/

—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:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/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:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/42634328

—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:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=53&issue=4&page=5

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