the man in gray; he went on
softly)—
poetry is what
* * *
he thought, but did not say.
“What He Thought” is dedicated to Fabio Doplicher (1938–2003), a poet and playwright from Trieste who spent most of his life in Rome. Perhaps he’s the so-called administrator referred to in the poem. This free-verse lyric is more narrative than most of McHugh’s work and begins by introducing a group of American poets, who are a bit puffed up by their role, their “sense of being / Poets from America” (the capital P in “Poets” suggests a slight pomposity), and travel from Rome to Fano. The narrator bites down on the sound of the consonant m (“met / the mayor, mulled / a couple matters over”), muses over a few funny vernaculars (“what’s a cheap date, they asked us, what’s / flat drink”), and then introduces the American poets to their European counterparts, all of whom are recognizable types—“the academic, the apologist, / the arrogant, the amorous . . .” The assonance is characteristic of McHugh’s verbal wit—she simply can’t resist punning and playing with words—and here it almost seems like an instance of her self-defined glibness. That’s precisely when she introduces the main character in the poem, an administrator in a gray suit, a conservative type, who serves as an unflappable tour guide. “Of all, he was most politic and least poetic, / so it seemed.” The phrases “most politic” and “least poetic” are ironically wed together. The phrase “so it seemed” foreshadows something crucial in this poem. The narrator has underestimated the guide, who is going to school her in the true nature of poetry.
The public events wind down, some of the American poets go home (there’s a nice enjambment on “We last Americans”), and everything closes in on a final dinner in a family restaurant in Rome (“we sat and chatted, sat and chewed”). But then, somewhat portentously, someone asks, “What’s poetry?” (the question comprises a line unto itself), and then sets up a cunning duality, a parlor game: “Is it the fruits and vegetables and / marketplace of Campo dei Fiori, or / the statue there?”
Someone is surely going to answer that poetry is the daily marketplace, while someone else is going to argue that it’s the statue of the philosopher, but before anyone else can speak, McHugh, who identifies herself as “the glib one,” blurts out that the answer is both. She is always the quickest wit in the room, and now she has seen through the false dichotomy. But then she critiques her own speaker, her earlier self—“But that / was easy. That was easiest to say”—and acknowledges that what the dry administrator says next teaches her about difficulty and forces her to rethink her idea of poetry. This is the moment when a clever poem is transformed into an epiphany.
The Italian guide tells everyone that the statue represents the philosopher Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake for religious heresy by the Inquisition in Rome on Ash Wednesday, 1600. He quotes from Bruno’s indictment of the church, The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast (“If he is not Nature herself, he is certainly the nature of Nature, and is the soul of the Soul of the world, if he is not the soul herself,” Bruno wrote)—and tells the story of how Bruno’s captors put an iron mask on his face so that the eloquent philosopher could not speak. Czesław Miłosz also refers to this story in his early poem “Campo dei Fiori,” where he states that Bruno “climbed to his burning” and couldn’t find “in any human tongue / words for mankind.” But McHugh’s Italian guide tells the story with much more brutal directness:
That’s
how they burned him. That is how
he died: without a word, in front
of everyone.
And then he goes on quietly to declare: “poetry is what // he thought, but did not say.”
It is only at the very end that we truly understand the title of this poem: “What He Thought.” As in Wisława Szymborska’s “Under One Small Star,” it isn’t until the final two lines that we recognize that we are reading an ars poetica, a poem that takes the art of poetry—its own means of expression—as its explicit subject. Giordano Bruno was a Neoplatonic philosopher who persistently tried to wed philosophy to verse. But there was nothing more that he could say once he was so terribly muzzled. The Italian poet who speaks of him reminds us of the urgent need for poetry. Poetry, he suggests, is what Bruno thought at the extreme point of death but could never express.
Poets have made many attempts over the centuries to answer the question What is poetry? Dante conceived of it as a species of eloquence. Sir Philip Sidney called it “a speaking picture.” Coleridge characterized it as “the best words in the best order.” Robert Graves thought of it as “stored magic,” André Breton as a “room of marvels.” In our time, Joseph Brodsky described poetry as “accelerated thinking,” and Seamus Heaney called it “language in orbit.” And now we also know that poetry is something unsayable. Some essential part of it cannot be spoken. It is a human truth beyond words.
In “What He Thought” Heather McHugh turned away from one kind of verse, which seemed to come easily to her, and embraced another kind, something much more emotionally difficult and intellectually demanding, something grief-stricken and true.
Les Murray
* * *
“It Allows a Portrait in Line-Scan at Fifteen”
(1993)
It Allows a Portrait in Line-Scan at Fifteen” is a portrait of Les Murray’s teenage son Alexander, who was diagnosed with autism as a three-year-old child. It gives us a father’s perspective on the agony and joy of his son’s daily life with his parents on their forty-acre farm in Bunyah, Australia. It is also a representation of his son’s neurological disorder. Murray’s sympathy was well earned. His biographer Peter S. Alexander recounts just how difficult it was for him to accept the full extent of his son’s limitations. It also prompted Murray to recognize some of his own mildly autistic traits, which he must have intuited since he wrote a poem called “Portrait of the Autist as a New World Driver” before Alexander was born. He told an interviewer that “no father of an autistic child fails to be a bit of an autie himself” and labeled himself “a high-performing Asperger” and “a quasi-autistic child off a farm.”
It Allows a Portrait in Line-Scan at Fifteen
He retains a slight “Martian” accent, from the years of single phrases,
He no longer hugs to disarm. It is gradually allowing him affection.
It does not allow proportion. Distress is absolute, shrieking, and runs him at frantic speed through crashing doors.
He likes cyborgs. Their taciturn power, with his intonation.
It still runs him around the house, alone in the dark, cooing and laughing.
He can read about soils, populations, and New Zealand. On neutral topics he’s illiterate.
Arnie Schwarzenegger is an actor. He isn’t a cyborg really, is he, Dad?
He lives on forty acres, with animals and trees, and used to draw it continually.
He knows the map of Earth’s fertile soils, and can draw it freehand.
He can only lie in a panicked shout SorrySorryIdidn’tdoit! warding off conflict with others and himself.
When he ran away constantly it was to the greengrocers to worship stacked fruit.
His favorite country was the Ukraine: it is nearly all deep fertile soil.
Giggling, he climbed all over the dim Freudian psychiatrist who told us how autism resulted from “refrigerator” parents.
When asked to smile, he photographs a rictus-smile on his face.
It long forbade all naturalistic films. They were Adult movies.
If they (that is, he) are bad the police will put them in hospital.
He sometimes drew the farm amid Chinese or Balinese rice terraces.
When a runaway, he made uproar in the police station, playing at three times adult speed.
Only animated films were proper. Who Framed Roger Rabbit then authorized the rest.
Phrases spoken to him he would take as teaching, and repeat.
When he worshiped fruit, he scream
ed as if poisoned when it was fed to him.
A one-word first conversation: Blane!— Yes! Plane, that’s right baby!— Blane!
He has forgotten nothing, and remembers the precise quality of experiences.
It requires rulings: Is stealing very playing up, as bad as murder?
He counts at a glance, not looking. And he has never been lost.
When he ate only nuts and dried fruit, words were for dire emergencies.
He knows all the breeds of fowls, and the counties of Ireland.
He’d begun to talk, then returned to babble, then silence. It withdrew speech for years.
Is that very autistic, to play video games in the day?
He is anger’s mirror, and magnifies any near him, raging it down.
It still won’t allow him fresh fruit, or orange juice with bits in it.
He swam in the midwinter dam at night. It had no rules about cold.
He was terrified of thunder and finally cried as if in explanation It—angry!
He grilled an egg he’d broken into bread. Exchanges of soil-knowledge are called landtalking.
He lives in objectivity. I was sure Bell’s palsy would leave my face only when he said it had begun to.
Don’t say word! when he was eight forbade the word “autistic” in his presence.
Bantering questions about girlfriends cause a terrified look and blocked ears.
He sometimes centred the farm in a furrowed American Midwest.
Eye contact, Mum!means he truly wants attention. It dislikes I contact,
He is equitable and kind, and only ever a little jealous. It was relief when that little arrived.
He surfs, bowls, walks for miles. For many years he hasn’t trailed his left arm while running.
I gotta get smart! looking terrified into the years. I gotta get smart!
The sentences are simple, direct, repetitive, and incantatory in this one-stanza poem, which presents a catalog of long sweeping lines and operates through a buildup of parallel statements: “He retains”; “He no longer”; “It is”; “It does not.” This helps to create the underlying intensity that drives the seemingly objective portrait. The lines are filled with surprises too. Parallelism is a more complex and estranging device than it might initially seem. The Russian formalist critic Viktor Shlofsky pointed out in “Art as Technique” (1917) that “the perception of disharmony in a harmonious context is important in parallelism. The purpose of parallelism, like the general purpose of imagery, is to transfer the usual perceptions of an object into the sphere of a new perception . . .”
The first thing that strikes the reader is the displacement of pronouns in this poem. The title itself turns the subject into an object. “It” refers to autism. “It” also refers to the disconcerting way that the autistic person refers to himself. Many people on the spectrum of autism find it difficult to speak about themselves in the first person. They feel more comfortable with objective facts. Murray noted that “like all autistic kids, Alexander used to refer to himself as ‘they,’ or ‘she,’ any pronoun but ‘I.’ The more frightening a thing was, the further the pronoun was from ‘I.’ If he was really scared, it was ‘they.’ ‘If they’re bad, the police will put them in hospital.’ Not ‘If I’m bad, the police will put me in hospital.’ That would be too terrifying a thing to say. It’s what you might call pronomial deflection.”
Murray uses his own pronomial deflection as a sort of postmodern device to create a portrait of someone who has been completely estranged from ordinary life. Hence, “He retains a slight ‘Martian’ accent.” But Murray’s speaker also recognizes the son’s development: “He no longer hugs to disarm.” The shift from “he” to “it” in the second and third lines shows the gradual shift in Alexander’s perspective, what “it” does and does not allow or enable him to do: “It is gradually allowing him affection. / It does not allow proportion.” “It” is something fully in charge of him.
Alexander likes cyborgs because he identifies with them, because he feels that he’s a bit machinelike himself. He thinks that Arnold Schwarzenegger is also a cyborg, a machine-man, who might protect him, and so he’s disappointed to discover that the actor is one of the so-called regulars or ordinary folks. The poem repeatedly intersperses Alexander’s impulsiveness (“It still runs him around the house, alone in the dark, cooing and laughing”) with his gifts as someone with Asperger’s syndrome (“He knows the map of Earth’s fertile soils, and can draw it freehand”). Much of a personal story is implied (“When he ran away constantly”; “When a runaway, he made uproar in the police station”). Raising a son with autism requires constant vigilance. The poem shows how difficult it is for Alexander to make human contact (“When asked to smile, he photographs a rictus-smile on his face”) and imitate ordinary feeling.
There is a quiet critique of psychotherapy here, of “the dim Freudian psychiatrist who told us how autism resulted from ‘refrigerator’ parents.” The idea that lack of parental warmth and attachment caused autism in children had been circulating since the 1940s. Apparently, Leo Kanner’s dubious and toxic term “Refrigerator Mother,” which had been popularized as “Refrigerator Parents” by Bruno Bettelheim, had made its way to Australia. Murray wasn’t taken in. But in his poem there is a subtle auto-critique too, a sense of how difficult it has been to raise a kid with so many arbitrary rules (“When he worshiped fruit, he screamed as if poisoned when it was fed to him”) and such limited speech (“He’d begun to talk, then returned to babble, then silence. It withdrew speech for years”). The parents need to keep figuring out their own rules and rulings.
There is also a sense throughout the poem of Alexander growing up. The poem is a portrait of him in transit as a teenager: how he was then, how he is now. The poem creates this feeling by continually changing tenses: “He counts at a glance, not looking. And he has never been lost. / When he ate only nuts and dried fruit, words were for dire emergencies. / He knows all the breeds of fowls, and the counties of Ireland.” The speaker retains his sense of surprise at what drives Alexander, of how he lives “in objectivity.” He tries to understand Alexander’s situation and suspects how hard it must be for his son to be considered a “case”: “Don’t say word! when he was eight forbade the word ‘autistic’ in his presence.”
Murray’s portrait is restrained, but emotion keeps breaking through, especially near the end of the poem. There’s a moment when he allows himself a pun: “Eye contact, Mum! means he truly wants attention. It dislikes I contact.” The father’s sense of both affection and relief comes through as Alexander grows into a more sympathetic person, someone who can feel something for others: “He is equitable and kind, and only ever a little jealous. It was relief when that little arrived.”
At the very end of the poem, we get a feeling for Alexander’s hard-won daily activities: “He surfs, bowls, walks for miles.” He is no longer so disabled: “For many years he hasn’t trailed his left arm while running.” And in the last line Alexander himself fittingly gets the last word, though his father’s anxiety also slips through: “I gotta get smart! looking terrified into the years. I gotta get smart!”
Les Murray’s portrait “It Allows a Portrait in Line-Scan at Fifteen” is a poem that tries hard to be smart about itself. It describes with uncanny precision what it’s like to have a teenager with autism. It is highly self-aware, astute, and truthful.
Thomas Lux
* * *
“The People of the Other Village”
(1993)
Thomas Lux started out in the 1970s as a sort of American Surrealist, an heir to the Deep Image poets, such as Robert Bly, James Wright, and W. S. Merwin, and closely akin to his contemporaries Charles Simic, James Tate, and Bill Knott, all of whom were summoning the irrational in their poems, trying to unite the conscious and unconscious mind through psychic leaps. Lux loved the antic energy of Surrealism, its commitment to strangeness, its image-centered mysteries. His early poems were disturbing portraits of what the poe
t Elizabeth Macklin called a “solo native . . . always strange to the world.” Over the years, however, Lux moved away from disjointed images and automatic writing, the poetry of the unconscious. As he said in an interview, “I kind of drifted away from Surrealism and the arbitrariness of that. I got more interested in subjects, identifiable subjects other than my own angst or ennui or things like that . . . I paid more and more attention to the craft . . . I started looking outside of myself a lot more for subjects. I read a great deal of history, turned more outward as opposed to inward.”
“The People of the Other Village” is one result of Lux’s turn outward. He was also paying attention to the news, placing events in the context of history. He wrote “The People of the Other Village” in opposition to the Gulf War (1990–91), which has also been called the Persian Gulf War, the First Gulf War, Gulf War I, the Kuwait War, and the First Iraq War. By whatever name, it was a disaster. Lux’s poem takes aim at the conflict, but, unlike most protest poems, it also floats free of its occasion and speaks to the age-old and ongoing catastrophe of dehumanizing people and turning them into the Other.
The People of the Other Village
hate the people of this village
and would nail our hats
to our heads for refusing in their presence to remove them
or staple our hands to our foreheads
for refusing to salute them
if we did not hurt them first: mail them packages of rats,
mix their flour at night with broken glass.
We do this, they do that.
They peel the larynx from one of our brothers’ throats.
We devein one of their sisters.
The quicksand pits they built were good.
100 Poems to Break Your Heart Page 32
