06-03-2014, 04:58 AM
I saw that you've posted an explanation but haven't read it carefully yet (don't worry, I will before this post is posted and you're reading my comments). Basically, I'm going to look at the poem "fresh" and see how I interpret it/feel about it, and then take a look at your explanation and try my best to discuss the poem in light of that.
When reading the poem cold, without looking below, it seems like the title is critical to understanding. I get really strong feelings and images from the main text of the poem, but they all feel very metaphorical, and on their own I have a hard time knowing what they refer to, or how they are tied together. The title is the linchpin that helps me start to figure it out.
The first stanza, makes me think the parents have awoken anxious and gone to check on their child … and now a storm is brewing in them, one that is making them angry, possibly at each other. That's how I'm interpreting "wrought old passion into rapiers" - upon the death of the child, the parents have gone from loving each other to blaming each other.
I'm having a little bit of a harder time with the metaphors in the second stanza. I like the how the poem shows us time in a few ways. "Time" as it's first mentioned seems like the abstract way we usually talk about time in daily conversation - "ain't nobody got time for that", basically. But then time becomes physical, shown to us like a clock coming apart. I do wonder what "our temple" is. It seems very open for interpretation. Is it the bed or the home as a temple? Or married love as a temple? It's really hard for me to tell, and I think that effects how I read the poem. Maybe I'm missing the mark entirely. Because the temple is mentioned in the context of a metaphor for something else (descriptions of time), I feel a little distanced from it, like I have to make a few jumps before figuring out what it "means". And without figuring that out I also fill a little lost on the "pitons" (is it supposed to be pistons?) and on "marble wounds".
I wonder if the "Gargoyles of doubt" in the last stanza are on the couple's bedposts, or on the crib. This could be an important distinction as well; are we seeing the desolate crib as a sea, and is the speaker addressing the lost child? Or are we seeing the couple's bed as a sea, and the speaker is addressing his or her spouse?
Now that I read your explanation I see I might be missing the point of the poem… maybe the title doesn't mean what I think it means? Is this solely about a failing relationship?
Looking at the poem again, I feel like the first stanza is the most understandable. It feels a little difficult to get into because of the first line, I think. "Misgivings awoke" feels a little disconnected to me. I like the way "misgivings" is made alive/human. But at the same time I wonder … misgivings about what? I can guess from "our bed" that it's about the relationship and that the people in the poem are possibly a married couple, but I feel like I'm stretching for it. I wonder if there's some way to hit on the situation of the poem more clearly using "misgivings" before getting to the metaphors that carry most of the poem.
Despite knowing that this is a poem about a relationship, my questions about the second stanza remain pretty much the same.
I kind of wish there were one or two things in the poem outside of the metaphorical experience of the speaker to point more clearly towards what things like "our temple" and "your sea monsters" might be … I get particular feelings from these metaphors, and I assume they are aspects of relationship and personality, but for some reason they still feel general to me. Usually image and metaphor can go such a long way towards getting me interested in experiences that are general and kind of dull when written about like a phone call to a friend … experiences like relationship trouble, or a breakup. But in reading this poem I feel like I get the emotional side only and need to invent narrative to put those emotions into any kind of order, to transform them from a collection of impressions to something I can connect with. Maybe that's what you want your readers to do, invent a narrative, and if that's the case awesome. But maybe you had something a bit more denotative in mind?
When reading the poem cold, without looking below, it seems like the title is critical to understanding. I get really strong feelings and images from the main text of the poem, but they all feel very metaphorical, and on their own I have a hard time knowing what they refer to, or how they are tied together. The title is the linchpin that helps me start to figure it out.
The first stanza, makes me think the parents have awoken anxious and gone to check on their child … and now a storm is brewing in them, one that is making them angry, possibly at each other. That's how I'm interpreting "wrought old passion into rapiers" - upon the death of the child, the parents have gone from loving each other to blaming each other.
I'm having a little bit of a harder time with the metaphors in the second stanza. I like the how the poem shows us time in a few ways. "Time" as it's first mentioned seems like the abstract way we usually talk about time in daily conversation - "ain't nobody got time for that", basically. But then time becomes physical, shown to us like a clock coming apart. I do wonder what "our temple" is. It seems very open for interpretation. Is it the bed or the home as a temple? Or married love as a temple? It's really hard for me to tell, and I think that effects how I read the poem. Maybe I'm missing the mark entirely. Because the temple is mentioned in the context of a metaphor for something else (descriptions of time), I feel a little distanced from it, like I have to make a few jumps before figuring out what it "means". And without figuring that out I also fill a little lost on the "pitons" (is it supposed to be pistons?) and on "marble wounds".
I wonder if the "Gargoyles of doubt" in the last stanza are on the couple's bedposts, or on the crib. This could be an important distinction as well; are we seeing the desolate crib as a sea, and is the speaker addressing the lost child? Or are we seeing the couple's bed as a sea, and the speaker is addressing his or her spouse?
Now that I read your explanation I see I might be missing the point of the poem… maybe the title doesn't mean what I think it means? Is this solely about a failing relationship?
Looking at the poem again, I feel like the first stanza is the most understandable. It feels a little difficult to get into because of the first line, I think. "Misgivings awoke" feels a little disconnected to me. I like the way "misgivings" is made alive/human. But at the same time I wonder … misgivings about what? I can guess from "our bed" that it's about the relationship and that the people in the poem are possibly a married couple, but I feel like I'm stretching for it. I wonder if there's some way to hit on the situation of the poem more clearly using "misgivings" before getting to the metaphors that carry most of the poem.
Despite knowing that this is a poem about a relationship, my questions about the second stanza remain pretty much the same.
I kind of wish there were one or two things in the poem outside of the metaphorical experience of the speaker to point more clearly towards what things like "our temple" and "your sea monsters" might be … I get particular feelings from these metaphors, and I assume they are aspects of relationship and personality, but for some reason they still feel general to me. Usually image and metaphor can go such a long way towards getting me interested in experiences that are general and kind of dull when written about like a phone call to a friend … experiences like relationship trouble, or a breakup. But in reading this poem I feel like I get the emotional side only and need to invent narrative to put those emotions into any kind of order, to transform them from a collection of impressions to something I can connect with. Maybe that's what you want your readers to do, invent a narrative, and if that's the case awesome. But maybe you had something a bit more denotative in mind?