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Show Ghiselin: A Reading From Poems 00t 11 37 tIe or no use for facts. No doubt this mistake has been partly the birds poets' fault. I once knew a poet, an American, too, whose A blame. to are the And not all poets were only nightingales. novelist recently compelled some mockingbirds into Salt Lake kind of City to sing "madly" by moonlight to his hero. In this is fairy tale atmosphere the Imaqination suffocates. The scientist and sound in be should A aspect to every poem protest. right readable with more or less preparation and effort by every man. .......... .......... The writer who takes the trouble to increase his special knowledge often finds his subject enriched. Among other things, Dr. Woodbury pointed out that snakes are very sensitive to vibra As evidence, he told me that tions transmitted through solids. rattlers lying on the running board of a car will sizzle with annoy when the horn is blown, whereas others on the ground near This fact meant at least one line to will pay no attention. by the which in line the vibrating earth is indirectly said to me, ance (4) be the eardrum of the snake . . RATTLER, ALERT Slowly he sways that head that cannot hear, Two-jeweled cone of horn the yellow of rust, Pooled on the current of his Iisteninq fear. His length is on the tympanum of earth, And by his tendril tongue's tasting the air He sips, perhaps, a secret of his race , Or feels for the known vibrations, heat, or trace Of smoother satin than the hillwind's thrust Through grass: the aspirate of my half-held breath, The crushing of my weight upon the dust, My foamless heart, the bloodleap at my wrist. Recently I published a poem in which the central imaqe It! lOW Ke'! tive rllr no the is a cat. The model was a friend's Persian. The friend says the likeness is poor. Another friend has written to ask if I meant The comments suggest the a cat. to do more than portray reader's difficulty in knowing where the meaning of the poem How far shall he look for meanings, beyond what is is centered. that he directly, explicitly presented? The answer, I think, is should look as far as he may. Of course a poem always impells But the mind beyond the direct, explicit statement it contains. focus on their immediate subjects, like the poem some poems attentive to the crea just read, in which the subject is the rattler ture confronting it. Others may focus on what the subject sym to follow, the real subject is not a cat, but bolizes. In the ' poem the threat of expanding fear. |
