Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site peora.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!petsd!peora!jer From: jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) Newsgroups: net.poems,net.sf-lovers,net.tv Subject: Re: The real (Amazing) Story Message-ID: <1793@peora.UUCP> Date: Fri, 15-Nov-85 08:48:49 EST Article-I.D.: peora.1793 Posted: Fri Nov 15 08:48:49 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 16-Nov-85 09:57:09 EST References: <782@umd5.UUCP> Organization: CONCURRENT Computer SDC, Orlando, Fl. Lines: 49 Xref: watmath net.poems:950 net.sf-lovers:11174 net.tv:3564 [The referenced article is on "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner", by Randall Jarrell.] If it is socially unacceptable to discuss poetry in net.poems, please stop your ears and shut your eyes while I tell you what I think of this poet. This poem by Jarrell is his most often-anthologized, I think, yet it's too short to get a real feel for the intensity of Jarrell's poetry. If you liked this poem, read, for example, "The Woman at the Washington Zoo."* The passage that goes something like [from memory, so it is probably wrong] Vulture, when you come for The white rat the foxes left, Take off the red helmet of your head And step to me as Man, The wild brother at whose feet The white wolf fawns, To whose hand of power The great lioness stalks, purring. You know what I was; You see what I am. Change me! Change me! has always seemed to me to be one of the most intensely painful, despairing, and poignant passages in any poem I have read, describing at the same time the agony of personal rejection, the isolation inherent in the depersonalization of the most personal of pursuits, and the failure of mankind to achieve fully his potential to rise to the metaphysical and thus transcend the animals. Simultaneously, it captures something essential in Jarrell's poetry, something having to do with the inner conflict that seemed to drive a lot of his poems. Notice how the acutely pointed and self-critical "The white rat the foxes left" bears in it this inner conflict, by virtue of the unusual use of the word "foxes". "These beings, trapped as I am trapped, but not themselves the trap..." This is very good poetry. --- * If you happened to take the English AP test in the Spring of 1975, you encountered this poem there. -- Shyy-Anzr: J. Eric Roskos @ CONCURRENT Computer (A Perkin-Elmer Co.) UUCP: Ofc: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer Home: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jerpc!jer US Mail: MS 795; CONCURRENT Computer Corp. SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642