1. First there are the words and the music they make; then there’s your interpretation of the meaning of these words – and the emotional and intellectual impact they have on you – triggered largely by life experience, and, to a lesser extent, other work you may have read.
2. Then there’s what the poet says (trustworthy or not) about the words – what motivated creation of the lines, and forms, rhythm and rhymes – why they were written .
3. Finally there’s what others say about the words. Their interpretation of what the words mean, who they sound like, why they are good or bad.
James Pollock gives us lots of #3 on Eric Ormsby, and some of #2 in the latest issue of The New Quarterly. Invariably though, it’s #1 which determines how we value a poem, proving, as Orwell once put it, that: "In reality there is no kind of evidence or argument by which one can show that Shakespeare, or any other writer, is ‘good’. Nor is there any way of definitely proving that — for instance — Warwick Beeping is ‘bad’. Ultimately there is no test of literary merit except survival, which is itself an index to majority opinion. Artistic theories such as Tolstoy’s are quite worthless, because they not only start out with arbitrary assumptions, but depend on vague terms (‘sincere’, ‘important’ and so forth) which can be interpreted in any way one chooses.
I have expended megawatts of energy here over the past few years arguing that if criteria for evaluation are agreed upon in advance, then yes, one can come up with some measure of literary value…and that yes, the judgments of those who have, for example, read an entire oeuvre, or lived richer, longer lives, weigh heavier than those who for example, have only read the odd paragraph during decades spent in a nunnery, however, I’m not now interested in blowing up that balloon; rather, I want to get to the 1,2,3s
Pollock tells us in his twenty page monograph that Bavarian Shrine is ‘one of the finest first books of poems ever published in Canada’. Refering to ‘Fetish’ Pollack says that the writing is ’self assured, vivid, and powerful: notice how Ormsby musters assonance and consonance in describing two clumsy feet, in a stumbled spondee, as "lopped blocks"; the words, which sound alike but not identical, sound out the imperfect resemblance of the feet to one another.’
He adds that, in a poem called ‘Lazarus in Skins’, Ormsby doesn’t want to express his personality; he wants to escape from it. He’s against the Wordworthian "egotistical sublime," Ormsby is; favouring the Keatsean "poetic character" that lacks an identity of its own: the Shakespearean type, the "chamelion poet, who is continually "filling some other Body." Ormsby himself is quoted as saying he was originally inspired by Rilke’s ‘thing-poems’; Marianne Moore’s ‘ferocious exactitude of perception and description’ seems, says Pollock, to have played a role in Ormsby’s trying to say things about essential natures; his intense, obsessive gaze at isolated things is fetishistic we learn - one that turns things into objects of erotic and transcendental desire, both ‘lewd and holy." Such intense observation is, Pollock suggests, an attempt by Ormsby to uncover preexisting correspondences between words and their sounds, and things; to discover a sense of unity in the world. Later we learn that far from just being descriptive, Ormsby’s thing-poems, serve as ‘intense verse meditations’ to express personal concerns – such as the breakdown of his marriage.
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This is all very well. Being privy to such background may leave a mark…may enrich the reading experience, increase empathy, understanding…but NOT until the words themselves have done their work…because, really, when making a judgment, it comes down to a head shake. If the words make me shake my head in admiration, and say to myself ‘this is great stuff’….’what sweet syntax’…’how sublime’…’what a good feeling this gives me’…’what a profound observation…great argument, gorgeous image’…’I never thought of that,’ ‘this is hilarious…makes me smile, makes me cry, makes me angry, makes me feel, makes me want to remember these words’ this, this is what determines value.
And if this doesn’t happen first, then all the exegesis, biography, theory, history, comparisons in the world wont make me like the poem one whit better. If it does happen however, then there’s a good likelihood I’ll be interested in learning more…the mind is open, as opposed to closed…when the mind is closed, it’s a damned sight harder to convince it of merits not immediately felt.
Perhaps one could call it the wedge…the thin edge has to be sharp enough to arrest attention…to dig in, hit a marveling vein, before the rest will be accepted, allowed in.
And so, while I agree with Pollock – I happen to think ‘Lazarus in Skins’ is a terrific poem, one that belongs, along with ‘Wood Fungus’ and parts of ‘Bavarian Shrine’, on a short list of best Canadian poems – I’m not sure how convincing his argument – or anyone’s – can be when trying to tout Ormsby – or any other poet – as one of ‘the best.’
I plan to revisit this brain dump.
