I would argue that in U Tin Moe's poem "Desert Years," the "body" of the poem, bodies of the speaker and the collective of his Burmese society, are presented as the parched earth. Despite the fact that the poem opens up with very human, and very wet, "Sobs" (446), the poem turns quickly to a metaphorical rendering of nature as dried up and in despair: "In these years the bees cannot / make honey". The structure of the poem is also very tight, as if all of its fluidity has run to a trickle, like a drying stream, down the left-margin of the page. The diction, too, is restrained. Many of the descriptions of nature are clipped declarative lines--though, many are not end-stopped-- especially in the beginning of the poem. The descriptions such as "The mist is damp / The storm is dim" and "There are no novices" show a movement, or the resilience of life, though not enough to really constitute content living.
As I read through the poem, it seems to be a coded observation of the impact of something gone wrong in the speaker's community. This notion is reinforced by "In the monastery at / the edge of the village / bells / are not heard. If they are / they do not enter the ears / blissfully" (447). The lack of "blissful" bells signals that only funeral bells, or warning bells, are the only music heard in this place. Here, the body of the communal, the body of the speaker, cannot completely disappear from the work, and is brought back to the poem through the sensory experience of sound.
Interestingly, the speaker turns back to the metaphor of the earth, though this time the metaphor is much more thin, easier to decode: "The earth doesn't dare / to put forth fruit. / It abandons all / and looks at me / at once feeling embarrassed / and frightened as if she / cannot talk" (447). The body--earth and the villagers-- is restrained by fear of an external pressure, the lack of rain ironically becomes omnipresent as an unnamed and oppressive force. Examining the effects oppression as a force of nature has on the body emphasizes how helpless one can feel in its path, and how relentless a toll this power imbalance takes. The despair in this poem is not soothed, it is left unresolved.
Avren, thank you for your close reading of this poem. I was really struck by your description of the declarative lines as "not really enough to constitute content living." The matter-of-factness of the lines also makes them feel really static to me. When he says, "X is Y" I feel like there is an implied "and that's just the way it is." That may also be because he describes things as what they aren't, what is lacking ("it doesn't rain," "bells / are not heard," etc.). The final question adds to what you're saying about the poem feeling unresolved. Although the lines are declarative and seemingly emotionless, the final line lingers in uncertainty and despair.
ReplyDeleteWhen you noted the lack of rain as "omnipresent" that struck me as profound. Usually, we do not think of a lack of something as omnipresent but an excess of something. However, a lack of something can be felt internally and externally- something generally feels "off." Thanks for this new characterization of the word "omnipresent."
ReplyDeleteI'm really fond of the notion that the human body and the body of the earth are the same or suffer the same traumas, exchange places and affect the other, so you seem to be on to that track as well so yay I'm not crazy
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