Merwin, oh

Reading through Merwin’s poems, I found myself a bit frustrated. Yes, there are some lovely, unexpected images, some punchy lines, some admirable sentiments. But, for me, it tends not to add up to a satisfying poetry experience ("For the Anniversary of my Death" is a notable exception; I love this poem.).

The “it doesn’t make any sense” argument just doesn’t stand up, though. Of course it doesn’t make any sense, and it makes all the sense in the world, depending upon how you see it. To force myself to articulate what I thought wasn’t working I decided to take one poem, “Bread,” and look at it more closely.

It’s unfortunate for Merwin that his first stanza so quickly brings to mind Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” (which reads, “The apparition of faces in the crowd;/
Petals on a wet, black bough”). Compare that to Merwin’s opening lines: “Each face in the street is a slice of bread/ wandering on/ searching.” Faces in the crowd, faces in the street…both poems evoke city life, and, while Pound’s setting might specify a more dense concentration of people, Merwin’s poem also suggest a multitude. He is talking about every face in the street. Whether or not he meant to, Merwin suggests Pound, but what he does with the idea of a crowd of people can’t compare with Pound’s simple, evocative imagery. In place of “petals on a wet, black bough,” we have, here, “a slice of bread.” Of course, that bread is so ordinary may be Merwin’s point, but the image is such a random, bland suggestion that it is difficult to respond to it as one can to Pound’s poem.

It is a weak beginning in its own right (Why are we talking about slices of bread???), and weaker still because of the comparison to Pound that it seems to suggest. But Merwin could have redeemed the odd, uninspiring image in the following stanzas. Instead, he starts talking about caves and “clutching” and “true hunger.” When did we see false hunger? If the faces are slices of bread, this does not suggest that they are hungry, but, rather, it could imply that someone else was hungry for them. And as for these caves, what have they to do with anything? If Merwin ever explains the connection, I can’t discover it. Sure, a reader could manufacture some tie, but the same reader could manufacture their own, better poem and save themselves the trouble of reading this one. Certain lines are affecting (“hung with the hollow marks of their groping,” and “rising its radiance to the moon” appeal to me), but they cannot save an aimless poem.

Now, I’m not suggesting a poem needs to make sense in the most straightforward, logical, orderly way. Pound’s little two-liner is quite random in its own right. Why, one could ask, does he bring up petals? But in this case, the image is rich, proactive, satisfying, beautiful. In “Bread,” there is little to touch the reader in the same type of penetrating way, stirring the senses to react, calling forth an emotion from the reader’s breast. A poem, I think, does not need to make sense, per se, but it must inspire a reaction, and I tend to value emotional reactions above intellectual ones (though both together is the ideal). Reading “Bread,” I was not moved to feel, nor to think very much (except by this “assignment,” and that is a force external to the poem). Apt after all, perhaps, that it is so titled, for it reads like a dry, white slice of bread.

Perhaps I haven’t been as articulate as I could, but it’s a start. I’d be curious to know what scholars have made of this little beast, what sense they’ve found in it, and what merit, if any.