I
Alvorens ons uitkom by die grootse gedig An Ordinary Evening in New Haven kyk ons eers na The Snow Man, oorspronklik in 1921 gepubliseer en opgeneem in sy debuut Harmonium.
The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
Source: Poetry magazine (1921)
Hierdie verruklike vers werk met die paradoks van dit wat bestaan en die afwesigheid van die voorstelling en hoe dit inwerk op mekaar.
‘n Sneeuman is iets wat kinders maak wat smelt in die somer. Die juniper het sade, maar dra geen vrugte of blomme nie.
https://www.britannica.com/plant/juniper Besoek 20 Junie 2024
Sogenaamde gymnosperms; net soos ‘n sneeuman niks kan voortbring nie.
Soos die stilte van sneeu wat deur hierdie vers beklemtoon word:
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
Stevens se digkuns werk met voorstelling (representasie) en afwesigheid.
II
So begin hierdie magistrale vers uit 1950, genaamd An Ordinary Evening in New Haven.
Dit beslaan 31 kanto’s met 6 reëlige strofes in ongerymde pentameter. Dit is opgeneem in die bundel Auroras of Autumn.
An Ordinary Evening in New Haven
I
The eye’s plain version is a thing apart,
The vulgate of experience. Of this,
A few words, and yet, and yet, and yet —
As part of the never-ending meditation,
Part of the question that is a giant himself:
Of what is this house composed if not of the sun,
These houses, these difficult objects, dilapidate
Appearances of what appearances,
Words, lines, not meanings, not communications,
Dark things without a double, after all,
Unless a second giant kills the first —
A recent imagining of reality,
Much like a new resemblance of the sun,
Down-pouring, up-springing and inevitable,
A larger poem for a larger audience,
As if the crude collops came together as one,
A mythological form, a festival sphere,
A great bosom, beard and being, alive with age.
*
Die gedig is ‘n meditasie en ‘n analise van godsdiens. “Vulgate of experience” is die Latynse weergawe van die Bybel uit die laat vierde eeu. O.a. belangrik in die Rooms-Katolieke Kerk.
Collops is Noord-Amerikaanse sleng vir ‘n vleissnit.
So sluit die vers in XXXI:
Like an evening evoking the spectrum of violet,
A philosopher practicing scales on his piano,
A woman writing a note and tearing it up.
It is not in the premise that reality
Is a solid. It may be a shade that traverses
A dust, a force that traverses a shade.
https://www.billcollinsenglish.com/OrdinaryEveningHaven.html Besoek 20 Junie 2024
III
This endlessly elaborating poem
Displays the theory of poetry,
As the life of poetry.
Frank Kermode is van mening dat elke gedig alreeds sy teorie in sig dra. Imre Salusinszky beklemtoon dit in die skerpsinnige onderhoud met Kermode in Criticism and Society (1987: 102).
Die sogenaamde “mythy mystique”, veral van An Ordinary Evening in New Haven, vra vir ‘n lesing van presies wat hierdie die gedig “dikteer”.
we seek / the poem of pure reality / untouched by trope or deviation / straight to the word (VIII)
the poem is the cry of its occasion / part of the res itself / and not about it (XII)
New Haven, Connecticut, is die dorp waar Yale Universiteit geleë is teenoor Harvard waar Stevens studeer het. Ivy League universiteite. New Haven is ‘n werkersklas-dorp. Dit word ook Elm City genoem met verwysing na al die bome in die stad.
‘n Gedig is vir Stevens iets wat nie oor iets handel nie, maar iets in sigself afgesluit. Tog opvallend hoeveel keer resemblance / presence / present in die gedig voorkom.
IV
Hier lees Stevens van sy gedigte voor:
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n_9_YKbojAGT3rv3Im0LHRxYw9NkR6HdUBesoek 20 Junie 2024
Joan Hambidge
25 Junie 2024
(Word vervolg)
Bronne:
Salusinszky, Imre. 1987. Criticism in Society : Interviews with Jacques Derrida, Northrop Frye, Harold Bloom, Geoffrey Hartman, Frank Kermode, Edward Said, Barbara Johnson, Frank Lentricchia and J. Hillis Miller. Londen: Methuen.