Ways of Seeing

                                                   

                                                Laura in Porto Palma - Tunaria, Summer, 2001.

Ways of Seeing

The following essay was provoked by a poem by David Rigsbee which I shall reproduce here immediately. The poem is taken from his last collection of poems This Much I can Tell You published by Black Lawrence Press, 2017. The poem is called The Complaint.

The old poets used to complain about their

significant others. It was a kind of requirement.

They were cruel or remote, or cruel and remote.

Also cold, of course, and disinterested.

The categories are unacceptable, now that

centuries of repetition and variation have left

devoid of descriptive force. Not only that,

but the setup, from an analytical standpoint,

is quite unsatisfactory: objectification, the gaze

and all that. We worked hard to hone

these skills into useful shape, instruments

to look beyond the pretenses and conventions.

They reduce sentiments to what they really are

and so uncover the secret springs and motives

where once there seemed to be a simple, universal cry

that said, I don’t think X loves me, and I am

in pain! To which already we could go

in a hundred directions, each tailor- made

to register the unique soul that’s going to die.

Questions rise like curling steam, that ask

why did he not escape the common fate, why

did his singularity not move his love to pity?

Why, once the collapse had begun, did it seem

to be unstoppable, joined to the arrow of time,

like necessity, which knows no angel mighty

enough to come down on the side of the poets,

those complaining creatures, who rather

look around, and seeing nothing, begin

in their tears their uniform lament. Because it was

nothing itself: no lover, no message, no pity,

a position endorsed by God himself for the next

to order up the light, those monomaniacs dying

to illuminate a vastness into which they

and their loves were destined. God could have said,

its not so good, but He didn’t: He said quite

the opposite. Who are the young poets to jump in

and complain again? The point is, a world spun

out of that nothing, and here we are lined up,

goodness on one side, grievances on the other.

I guess I am one of those ‘young’ poets to jump in and complain again, as this is a complaint which really resonated with me. So, before I do, let me give you my response to David’s poem above.

He Answers a Complaint

Objectification is good, and a necessary ‘Evil.’

Always! Think back to that afternoon in November,

Ten years ago now, one of the coldest on record

When nature and human events, in Shakespearean

Accord, seemed to align - with the drop in temperature

The nation lost its sovereignty, and while delegates

From the IMF came She appeared before you

On the street, divinely proportioned, Vitruvian

In all manner. But you thought of the phrase by

Lucretius – voluptatem praesagit muta cupido.

While she walked upon Nassau Street before you,

Snow all around, and you repeated the words like an

Incantation, following her limbs as if led by a divinity,

So that the very air warmed, and your pockets were refilled.

I should like to turn now to Dante, going back over seven hundred years – indeed Italy prepares for their national poet’s 700^th anniversary of his death next year, 2021. Here he is in Vita nuova when the poet describes his first encounter with Beatrice.

From the New Life

After Dante

When to my eyes appeared for the first time,

The glorious woman in my mind,

She who was called by many Beatrice,

Whom I did not know what to call

And who’d been in this world for some years,

As at the time when I first saw her,

The stars had been spread above me in the orient

During the twelfth century and who,

Because of her years, she being twice mine,

Had been kept from my sight till then.

She appeared dressed in a noble colour,

Humble and honest, blood red, fashionable

In the way of young people at the time.

At this point I can honestly say

That my life force, that which resides

In the most secret chamber of the heart,

Started to tremble, with such a force,

And my blood started to pump so violently

And the following words were uttered;

Ecce deus fortior me qui veniens

Dominabiton michi.

Here is a god much stronger than I

And which has come to rule over me.

Indeed, while rereading both these poems I am immediately reminded of the Muslim tradition of the burka a traditional style of dress which completely covers the woman’s body from head to toe, so powerful do they feel the possible impact of the vision of a woman on their menfolk that they would forbid their women to show themselves in public. In the west we have long protested such traditions, but in light of the fact of the poems above there is a poetic correspondence which is undeniable between the wearing of the burka and the impact of the vision of a woman on the soul of a man. Of course, the tradition in both the east and the west, as Simone de Beauvoir was to outline so memorably in Le Deuxieme Sexe, is that woman has for so long being perceived as the origin of evil. In the first part of her monumental work, she traces the origin in myths of perceived evil and womanhood. Figures such as Helen of Troy, for example.

Helen of Troy *

Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?

Are these the lips that spoke to me uttering her words?

Are these the eyes through which she has seen the world?

Is this the woman that has given birth to a girl?

Is this the companion who took you in?

Are these the legs which have traversed whole continents?

Are these the arms that have held so many lovers?

Is this the mind that has outwitted those others?

Are these the breasts which have given comfort?

Are these the hands which have cooled your brow?

Are these the feet that have marched to war?

Is this the back that has lain on countless beds?

Are these the thighs that have raised so many feathers?

Is this the sex that destroyed a world?

I started this short essay with a poem about a complaint evoking the male gaze etc. But, I conclude, equally, that it works both ways. Goodness is very rarely all on one side, nor are the complaints. We would appear to be, rather, all male and female, caught at the crossroads. One thing is sure, when it comes to the body it is always, also, a question about the soul.

Peter O’Neill

15/03/20

    

* Helen of Troy was first published in Chaos magazine, Fly on the Wall Poetry, 2019.