The Wild Cherry
The Wild Cherry- Malcolm Lowry
We put a prop beneath the sagging bough
That yearned over the beach, setting four stones
Cairn-like against it, but we thought our groans
Were the wild cherry’s, for it was as though
Utterly set with broken seams on doom
It listed wilfully down like a mast,
Stubborn as some smashed recalcitrant boom
That will neither be cut loose nor made fast.
Going-going- it was yet no bidder
For life, whether for such sober healing
We left its dead branches to consider
Until its sunward pulse renewed, feeling
The passionate hatred of that tree
Whose longing was to wash away to sea.
This poem caught my eye because it seemed so story-like in its free verse form. It really could be argued, perhaps, that this poem may just be prose in disguise, but I am definitely not a mastered critique, and would not myself make that argument. I found it really interesting that this poem only had two end-stopped lines, and the rest flows with enjambment. This is obviously why is has such a narrative feel to it. I enjoyed how the cherry tree was personified, and described as being "stubborn" and that it "listed wilfully". The images used to describe the tree as interesting, although I’m not sure if I fully understand them. The phrase "for it was as though utterly set with broken seams on doom" caused some confusion for me as to what this really means in relation to the poem. I interpreted this as the roots being the broken seams that perhaps are uprooted, causing potential doom for the life of the tree. Yet, in response, the tree "listed wilfully down like a mast". This simile seems very realistic, and painted the image of a tree that is awkwardly grown in an unsymmetrical position. I enjoyed the "Going-going" movement of the poem that was ironic, as it is clear that the tree is not moving . What I was truly unclear about, however, was the speakers "passionate hatred of that tree", perhaps because it was not fully upright, nor gone, rather, "whose longing was to wash away to sea". I really didn’t get the overall significance of this poem, however, it was the free verse and imagery of the tree that caught my attention. Perhaps someone can give me a clearer analysis of this poem if you happen to read this blog, because I’m out of ideas!
posted by Dana @ 10:25 AM
2 Comments:
Dana, I think we're all out of ideas right now -- it's exam time...Blah!
Interesting choice for a poem. I wasn't sure exactly what to think as well when I read it. I was actually a bit confused by the same lines you were.
I'm not sure who Malcolm Lowry is or when he lived, but it seems as though this is the epitome of free, modern-day verse. It doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense, and it leaves the reader to de-code the entire poem. There were definitely set images within the poem which made visuals a bit easier, such as "We put a prop beneath the sagging bough" (which made me think about Pounds "In a Station of the Metro") and "Utterly set with broken seams".
I enjoyed a bit of contrast with regards to how the poet mixed feeling with imagery in the lines "The passionate hatred of that tree/Whose longing was to wash away to sea." Water has always been a symbol of renewal, birth, "washing away", etc., and so to use this image to wash away the "hatred of that tree" was traditional, but yet in the entire poems' context, quite unique.
Where did you find this poet?
Dana: I enjoyed this poem you have posted. In the line, "Utterly set with broken seams on doom", I saw a picture of the seam where the branch would meet the trunk, having been ripped away and this caused "the sagging bough". He compares the bough to the mast on a sailboat that has been torn from it's boat anchor and when not sheered off completely, waves about, neither falling right down, nor standing in place. Because the tree was growing near the beach and the tree was splitting, the poet saw this as the tree having a "passionate hatred" of life, and that the tree longed to wash away to the sea. Traditionally, where the water's edge meets the land's edge is thought to be the line between life and death - the sea representing death. The tree hated to be living and wanted to die, but even though it "yearned" for this, it wasn't quite close enough.
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