Iowa Review Volume 7 Issue 4 Fall Article 42 1976 Robert Bly's "Sleepers Joining Hs": Shadow Self Michael Atkinson Follow this additional works at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview Part Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Atkinson, Michael. "Robert Bly's "Sleepers Joining Hs": Shadow Self." Iowa Review 7.4 (1976): 135-153. Web. Available at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview/vol7/iss4/42 This Contents is brought you for free open access Iowa Research Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in Iowa Review an authorized administrar Iowa Research Online. For more information, please contact lib-ir@uiowa.edu.
Falling in Holes in Our Sentences This body holds its protective walls around us, it watches us whenever we walk out. Each step we take in conversation with our friends, moving or slowly flying, body watches us, us calling in what is possible, in what is not said, in shuckheap ruined arrowheads, or old man with missing fingers. We take our first step in words each day, instantly fall in a hole in our sounds. sane Overly afternoons in a room our during twenties come back us in form a son who is mad, every longing anor person had that we failed see body returns us as a squinting eyes when we talk, no sentimentality, only ruthless body performing its magic, transforming each our confrontations in energy, our changing scholarly labors over white-haired books in certainty healing power, our cruelties in an old man with missing fingers. We talk all morning confusion ors, in daylight car slides f road, I give advice in as public if I were mature, that night in a dream I see a a policeman holding gun head a frightened girl, who is blindfolded, priest talks easily death, a opening National sees an Geographic old woman lying with her mouth open. Robert Bly's Sleepers Joining Hs: Shadow Self / Michael Atkinson In Sleepers Joining Hs, Robert Bly fers his readers a various weave personal public, psychological political modes experience. Each mode illuminates or, as though, I hope show, collection is most fundamentally formally psychological. lay out book is pleasantly indirect: two dozen pages poems, ranging from haiku-like meditation moments longer poems protest. n re is essay, a short course in Great Mor, an analysis disturbing but finally nourishing configuration feminine archetypes in collective unconscious. And we finally have oneiric title sequence: four poems a coda, written at different times published in differ ent places, but here fered as a single structure, a whole. poems on eir side essay seem point back forth 135 University Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR digitize, preserve, extend access Iowa Review www.jsr.org
each or. And so naturally we ask: what is relation earlier poems later sequence? what is final shape book? essay points way. Like most poets who pause explain m selves, Bly works His obliquely. essay focuses on work Bachen Neumann; yet pattern book rests on firmly thought a successor first teacher second?carl Jung. essay coordinates variety anima archetypes which inhabit our subcon sciousness: Good Mor who us gives life, Death Mor who takes it away; Ecstatic Mor, muse joy, Sne or Teeth Mor who reduces us stupor psychic annihilation. But title sequence, which is key book's integrity, focuses on two or Jungian dream archetypes? shadow Self. symbols earlier poems resonance gain in schematic con text later sequence: imagist poems move ward plotted action, oracles ward ritual, archetypes ward myth. Here, I would like pre sent scheme sequence show its relation shorter poems, delineating system archetypes that coherently applies throughout book, linking Biblical allusions contemporary consciousness con necting dream images with myth. After in sketching priles Great Mor, warns Bly that we should not examine his "poems for evidence m, for most [] poems were written without benefit m." And furr guide us, he lifts penultimate paragraph his essay from Jung: it virtually dia grams concern shape "Sleepers" sequence, our shifting at tention from " woman within" shadow Self. It would be far better simply admit our... spiritual poverty. spirit has come down from its... fiery high places but when spirit becomes heavy, it turns water.... refore way soul in search its lost far... leads water, dark mirror that lies at botm. Whoever has decided move ward state spiritual poverty... goes way soul that leads water. [Bly's ellipses] In Jung's overall schema, personality striving for full individuation or integration has four aspects, which are personified in our dreams: (1) ego (or persona), that person (or role) we consider ourselves be in normal waking consciousness; (2) shadow, that figure same sex as ego who embodies or negative positive traits which might have been conscious but which have now been repressed; (3) anima, woman within man, that feminine consciousness with which he has come terms?or animus, man within woman, representing male 136
consciousness with which woman must reconcile herself; finally, (4) Self, that perfect wholeness which individual can become, when he has reconciled himself with his shadow anima (or she with her shadow animus) become his own potentiality for being. first poem "Sleepers" sequence hearkens back time ego became split from its shadow repression, is en appropriately titled " Shadow Goes Away." It records fragmentation ques r, chronicles his separation from that lost aspect which he must again come recognize in himself. Until he incorporates his shadow, he is pow erless act effectively. We feel his powerlessness as we gaze with him upon " woman chained shore," Andromeda-like, hear him express his fear going in ocean fight for her, liberate her. ( In mythic compression, woman is ocean?la mer, la m?re? womb from which he must be reborn whole. ) He fears sea. Juxtaposed his feel ing impotence is its cause: his loss shadow. Often?perhaps most frequently in dream art? shadow is a figure that embodies negative aspects personality; negativity pro vides reason are y Thus we repressed. have JekylTs hidden Hyde, Dim mesdale's Chillingworth, Gats's Wolfsheim, like. But, as Jung notes, we may just as easily deny parts ourselves that?grown wiser?we would consider good. Because something about m threatens fragile, narrowly defined persona or ego, y o may be repressed. But ultimately y must be admitted our consciousness assimilated, or results will be disastrous. Ishmael's savage Queequeg, Willy Lowman's Charley, Macbeth's Banquo: each contains "values that are needed consciousness, but that exist in a form that makes it difficult integrate m in one's life." protagonist in Bly's poems has a shadow that is protean but consis tent. dreamer first imagines himself a bror (probably Judah) Jos eph many colored coat; he recalls selling his bror-shadow in slavery. Joseph contains qualities dreamer so desperately needs complete his life. In Genesis (Chapters 37-50) Joseph is sent in moral wilderness Egypt, banished, repressed from consciousness family (except mind far, wise old man, Self who yearns for Joseph's return). Despite (or because ) banishment, Joseph gains mastery over alien realm, understs its laws understing dreams both positive negative, eventually provides his brors with what y need sustain ir lives, when y at last seek him out. Bly's shape-shifting protagonist repeatedly dreams selling his bror, notably be carried away in desert or out sea ( archetypal equiva lents for unconscious, which may be a realm danger potential death for fragmented brittle ego). Joseph is transformed in an 137
American Indian: he is "taken in travelling Sioux," he learns "glide about naked, drinking water from his hs, / ter horses, fol low faint trail through bent grasses." quesr's shadow?, poem suggests, ours?is natural man, primitive, at home in world nature unconscious. pillagers tribal village Marines who appear late in poem are intended remind us how we have our duplicated oppression Indian in bombing Viet nam. Equations that seem both familiar strained in political rheric are here given greater coherence vitality in a connec psychological tion. In each case we have attempted destroy ( or repress ) people who best exemplified very we most qualities need acknowledge cultivate in ourselves?positive shadows. " Shadow Goes a Away" gives context larger for a number or poems?poems, already integers mselves, now resonate within larger pattern. " Condition Working Classes: 1970" is blamed not on those above m, but on those y have trod under?blamed not on oppression that workers might suffer, but on repression ir shadows, inwardly outwardly. Thus, we eat "a bread made sound sunken buffalo bones" drink "a water turned dark shadows Negroes"; "Sioux dead sleep all night in rain on troughs Treas ury Building," because this our sons are "lost in immense forest" unintegrated unconscious. As repression intensifies, so does terror living with it. Denying shadow drives us in maw " Teeth Mor Naked at Last." Here horror hits its highest pitch an unfamiliar list ward stereo type stridence appears. Maybe it is unavoidable?so many have spoken out against war for so long that even most telling analysis has de teriorated in formula come finally rest in clich?. Bly's poem can not shake itself free stereotypy, even though it has considerable power. power comes not just from its imagery? If one those children came near that we have set on fire,_ If one those children came ward me with both hs in air, fire rising along both elbows I would suddenly go back my animal brain I would on drop all fours, screaming, my vocal cords would turn blue, so would yours. it would be two days before I could play with my own children again?but from analysis cause effect that is given in hard terms imagery which will not allow luxuries niceties rationalization. se cause-effect concatenations generate both strengths weak 138
nesses poem. I suspect each reader will find different equations ef fective. But when y work, y work; when y don't, y grate. poem begins with a deft horrific picture planes lifting f on bombing missions. first stated cause for missions?hamiln's plan for a centralized bank. This is entirely o easy. And, though he does re turn such, fortunately Bly gets beyond familiar accusations eco nomic materialism a perspective that still has capacity arrest us. He tells us save tears we shed for exploding children. Don't cry at that? Do you cry at wind pouring out Canada? Do you cry at reeds shaken at edge sloughs? He asks us hold our tears, Yeatsian but see joyless, terrible de struction as a natural law working itself out. natural wind that shakes reeds brings snow is not just is meteorological?it inner wind spirit that blows where it lists. This happens when seasons change, This happens when leaves begin drop from trees o early "Kill m: I dont want see anything moving." This happens when ice begins show its teeth in ponds This happens when heavy layers lake water press down on fish's head, send him deeper, where tail swirls slowly, his brain passes him pictures heavy reeds, vegetation fallen on vegetation... Hamiln saw all this in detail: "Every every banana tree slashed, every cooking mattress cut.'* utensil his smashed, key here is aquatic imagery, which so pervades poem ( book). Allegorically read, passage limns in a picture repression?a freezing sensitive living waters, ice pressing down on fish, denizen unconscious, our evolutionary precursor. And dying, descending fish sees pictures previous repressions, impressions from coal age, compressed, petrified, transformed, ancient, yet still leaving, layer upon layer, imprint ir repression in deep lake floor, be neath now frozen surface. Though it is pretty clear that Hamiln did not see all this in detail, we can see that se are natural psychic laws we are following. This is why 139
we lie ors ourselves (section II)? cover with furr layers skin we have on already put things, so mask mask. And from this, a furr equation is posited. "se lies mean country wants die"?self denial is self denial is self denial. our Killing shadows bekens hunger for our own death. poem's or analyses?economic primarily?look best when seen in light this larger pattern repression. It is because aluminum window shade business is doing so well in United States that we roll fire over whole villages fortunately cedes It is because we have so few women sobbing in back rooms, because we have so few children's heads rn apart high velocity bullets, because we have so few tears falling on our own hs that Super Sabre turns screams down ward earth. And it is from this analysis that poem's final prayer comes: Let us drive cars up light beams stars... And return earth crouched inside drop sweat that falls from chin Protestant tied in fire. If we have become cruel it is because we cannot remember our own suffer ing: in our we righteousness have our forgotten pain. Our only hope lies in remembering. " Marines think that unless y die rivers will not move." At a conscious level, we believe we are a fulfilling chosen, des compr?hensible tiny; but at unconscious level we are following path a not destiny so nearly manifest, though much more powerfully certain. We are rushing edge sea as "pigs rush ward cliff" driven our own demons re below us we see our hisry our destiny, balanced: 140
emerges from beneath ground. 141 waters underneath part: in one ocean luminous float up (in m hairy ecstatic men?) in or, teeth mor, naked at last. globes She is naked terrible. But at least we can see her now, as our forebears perhaps could not. In terror Vietnam she has become clear us, our own creation. As Bly explains in his essay, Teeth Mor "sts for numbness, paralysis, catan?a, being tally spaced out, psyche rn bits, arms legs thrown all over." For alternative path? path that leads down in ocean where "luminous globes float up (in m hairy ecstatic men)"?we must wait until "Sleepers Joining Hs" outlines a map recovery. Though outrage poem is certainly justified, it looks better in context book as a whole than it does sting alone. " Teeth Mor Naked at Last" fers a diagram a despair, brittle anamy agony with a only gesture indicate possibility healing, wholeness. Here, n, is a picture U.S. at our most culturally destructive, our own annihilating shadows?indians, Blacks, Vietnamese?with whom we must be reunited if we are have psychic fullness dimensionality; if we are be solid enough cast shadows. Concern for oppression our shadows pervades book, essay poems. But it is neir a continuing accusation nor an extended mea culpa that Bly chants, as "Calling Badger" shows. This poem, like all Bly's work on shadow, is pervaded a "sadness that rises from death Indians," that is a sadness for our own loss. "We are driven Florida like Ger?nimo" because our imaginations cannot function fully with such a large psychic space blocked out, repressed. Or, in imagery "Pilgrim Fish Heads," Indian we have displaced "vanishes in water.... / Mattapoiset is in league with rotting wood." Thus denied shadow stens rots whatever structures we might consciously build. This backward look over shadow poems that begin book can help define conditions that as apply title sequence opens. As in most myths ( wher king be impotent, l waste, or virgin guarded a dragon?all which conditions more or less obtain as we return opening "Sleepers" sequence) call quest begins with a perception a lack, an imbalance. Whereas earlier, shorter poems at mainly expressed despair loss, " Shadow Goes Away" proceeds from recognition resrative action. Our fugitive imaginations are per sonified in protagonist who, o, calls badger otter, animals still in uch with renewing waters psychic life, stream that
Bly's seeker goes in search his shadow, which hides in all dark peo ples, Negro, Eskimo, Indian, Asian. He enters inner outer desert sees Sioux "struggling up mountain in disordered Unes" or opens a drawer, a compartment unconscious, sees "small white horses gallop away ward back" in retreat. He links destruction his shadow with his inability recognize unite with his anima, woman within, his own intuition: gentleness I have been divorced five hundred times, six hundred times yesterday alone. Yet even now he has begun incorporate shadow's consciousness values. He will no longer in participate repression, for he sees where it leads: " Marines turn me. y fer me money. / I turn leave." With consciousness shadow resuscitated, he sees disfugra tion his l. " race returns: suppressed [it sees] snakes transis rs filling beaches." Even are planets despoiled: " Sea Tran quility scattered with dead rocks / black dust resembling diesel oil" Beneath this moon in polluted "pilots armored cockpits [are] finding ir way home through moonlit clouds." equation between past present betrayals, between Indian Asian wars, is now complete, clear as protagonist well as reader. Refusing continue old path inner denial outward oppression, he turns from zeal battle view littered l with primitive consciousness compassion. He has begun assimilate consciousness shadow, can now con tinue his journey integration. second poem sequence finds dreamer momentarily awake, noting but not yet comprehending femininity earth on which he finds himself: "fragments mor lie open in all low places." But his task here is "Meeting Man Who Warns Me," substance warning is that he may not underst, may not proceed furr without realizing from a transcendental viewpoint where he has already been. Dreaming again, sleeper experiences everywhere death far: I dream that fars are dying. Jehovah is dying, Jesus' far is dying, hired man is asleep inside oat straw. Samson is on lying ground with his hollow hair. Even far's emissary, Christlike 142 visir whose circumcising uch
puts protagonist back in a dream, is seen as inhumanly remote, extra terrestrial. dreamer experiences absolute separation from presence far because he has seen far as only external; he has not yet recognized as a far-energy part himself, waiting be actualized. But now that vision can change, for in paradoxical logic myth, once shadow figure has become visible, light may be seen. My shadow is underneath me, floating in dark, in his small boat bobbing among reeds. A fireball floats in corner Eskimo's house It is a light that comes nearer when called! A light spirits turn ir heads for, suddenly shining over l sea! I taste heaviness dream, norrn curve lights up ward ro my mouth. energy is inside us... This energy, this Ught, is Ught Self, that truly integrated individ ual, that near divinity which each human being has potential become. notes Jung that Self can be symbouzed many sorts a things: a geometric figure, radiation a light, tree, sne, well, or any number "world navel" configurations. But most prevalent Uterary mythical representations Self are babe wise old man. It is ap propriate that Self could be represented youth age, since it is that nuclear source energy within us at birth (or reborn in self-discov ery), which, if we our integrate Uves, comes fullness its wisdom in our maturity. Quite as strikingly, protagonist poem csees light' realizes that " energy is inside us," he encoun immediately ters a personification Self: I start ward [ light], I meet an old man. And old man cries out: "I am here. Eir talk me about your life, or turn back." When protagonist pauses for breath begins account for his ex perience, rendering is most startling; for it comes from a greater com pleteness, a awareness greater mythic than eir reader or dreamer knew he had. He begins announcing his own shadow-including nature recount a proceeds mythical journey which neir we nor he knew he had taken. 143
"I am dark spirit that Uves in dark. Each my children is under a leaf he chose from all leaves in universe. When I was alone, for three years, alone, I passed under earth through night-water I was for three days inside a warm-blooded fish. 'Purity heart is will one thing.' I saw road." And when Self urges him?"go on! Go on!"?he continues: A whale bore me back home, we flew through n I was a boy who had never seen sea! It was Uke a King coming his own shores. I feel naked uch knife, I feel wound, this joy I love is Uke wounds at sea..." air... Suddenly he has discovered in his own experience, not only reauzation shadow (which we had shared with him) but also shape a with a quest?complete three-day immersion in belly a whale, traditional typological symbol for a descent in most terrifying aspects unconscious (viz. Jonah, Christian iconography, Pinocchio, et al.). Until now, he had, Uke a child born again, forgotten his Unks with sea; he was Uke a king, stranger his own shore, suddenly realizing extent his right rule. His realization is as sudden as it is as as complete, unding for dreamer as for reader. Having thought all fars were dead (i.e., having felt lack his own origin) he now discovers Ught illumination within himself, encounters a farly wise old man who corresponds that light in outer world, only reauze that he, dreamer himself, is both far child, "dark spirit" "boy." Wounded, that is, born circumcized in adult male world, protagonist sps reflect. We, o, might take a moment sp reflect? consider poem's method proceeding. In last few paragraphs I have been concerned estabush outune continuity poem?a continuity which is so far from obvious as be truly problematic. obscurity arises, primarily, from high degree compression with which poem was written. ( sequence, I was ld casually, was originally five times its present length.) epiphanic mode, not so unusual in itself, is furr compli cated a reversal usual relation between outer event psychic response; here changing phenomena are dictated shifts in psychic 144
states ( as in dream ) rar than or way around. In order manage this material, Bly replaces conventional narrative structure with an im plicit continuous parallelism Jung's schema dream imagery in individuation process. Though Jung's way reading language dreams is enormously in sightful, it is legitimate ask wher it is so essential a part our cul ture that it may be alluded as a structural as principle, Joyce, say, uses Odyssey. Following archetypal patterns, course, produces neir merit nor defect in poems, novels, or situation comedies. But ex requiring ternal knowledge patterns is problematic, especially when what is re quired is not just a sense general quest, but Jung's interpretation it. For without Jungian frame, a fair amount time apply it, most readers will find some real problems coherence; no matter how telling individual or images how striking poem's particular emotion al effects, difficulties with coherence will diminish final effect poem. Clearly, various readers will count cost in differing ways?based largely, I on suspect, ways y have already decided hle matters such as Eliot's classical eclecticism, Yeats' esotericism, Rothke's Emersonian ism, Kinnell's magic, like. But a problem that some feel worth over coming is a problem neverless. synoptic recollection journey protagonist, which ap pears in last lines "Meeting Man Who Warns Me," is exped in in "Night Journey Cooking Pot," which is a flashback composed reflections on experience meaning his immersion, dark, still uncomprehended part his quest. Here, a again, problem contin uity confronts us; but apparently confused confusing emotional swings can "Night Journey" be undersod once we see that poem di vides itself in two movements, describing two phases mythic jour ney: departure in realm mystery also return ordinary world. As seeker begins reexperience rearticulate his journey we retrospectively, hear a familiar pattern: "I was born during sea night journey." That he "love[s] whale with his warm organ pipes" is less expected, but perfectly consonant: for Bly, this going-out is an ec stasis, a sting-outside- ego, an ecstasy; it is return world men ordinary affairs that proves difficult leg journey. in departure water is a journey in ego-dissolving solitude, a necessary a prelude finding path effective action in ordinary world: "I float on solitude as on water... re is a road" (Bly's el?psis). poem's first movement explores his privacy, which for Bly is sister word not privilege, privation. Here we see rejuvenating exhilaration a going little crazy in private, deprived human contact in "woman less loneliness." enthusiasm for isolation expressed in "Night Journey" 145
is reinforced clarified several book's earuer poems. Because it rejuvenates, soutude itself becomes a welcome state, well-captured "In a Mountain Cabin in Norway" where "No one comes visit us for a week." short poems which begin volume deal frequently with solitude in both its aspects, as a going out as a coming in center. as ec Ecstasy stasis animates "Six Winter Privacy Poems": re is a solitude like black mud! Sitting in this darkness I can't tell if this joy singing, is from body, or soul, or a third place." Conversely?as a gloss on "Night Journey's" oracular exhortation "inward, inward, inward"? "Shack Poem" muses, "How marvelous be a thought entirely surrounded brains!" Finally, course, this privacy is solitude womb, for voyage he recalls in ' Night Journey in Cooking Pot," is night sea journey in womb la mer, notre m?re. cooking pot title, like oven hearth as Bly in explains his essay, is province woman symbol womb. In opening movement "Night Journey" images rebirth abound: "I feel... / ba whirling in womb," "Nuns with faces smood prayer peer out from holes in earth." When he sees realizes possibilities brought visitants from realm snow death in ("sleeping anguish Uke grain, whole, blind in old grave"), when he intuits chants shamans "with large shoulders covered with furs, / ones Holy with eyes closed," n he comes rejoice in all signs pointing ward death that precedes rebirth: Leaves slip down, falling through ir own branches. tree becomes naked joyful. Leaves fall in m wood. And it is out that he experience sings his song joy. retreat, death, hibernation Suddenly I love dancers, in dark... leaping I start sing. But this song is not an easy one, he knows it In second move ment "Night Journey" he faces difficulty returning world ordinary experience. Like Buddha, whose ultimate temptation was simply stay in oceanic trance nirvana, like silent Lazarus or 146
such quesrs, this seeker sees how difficult it will be communicate joy going beyond ego, personauty, boundaries our daily round. But like Whitman in "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," he urges us rea lize that we ence we are not sometimes separated forget. from him, but united I am not going farr from you I am coming nearer, green rain carries me nearer you, I weave drunkenly about page, I love you, I never knew that I loved you Until I was swallowed invisible. a common experi Here, in his protagonist's plea for understing, it would seem that we have Bly's apologia for his own method. By writing in language dream vision, he does not hope remove himself from our experience, for we are all dreamers, can eventually intuit scheme our dreams. If we do not see our immediately waking sleeping Uves as whole one, it is because waters sleep's deep well give illusion dis continuity. For we are like branch bent in water... Taken out it is whole, it was always whole... [Bly's elupses] Though he acknowledges that poem's oracular words may seem skew difficult, he assures us that when he emerges from water (night, mor, chaos, unconscious, dream) his speech will be as straight branch?a as we promise, have seen, difficult fulfill. What he hopes for (as he said in an earlier is a poem) day in which "if only in fragments unconscious would grow as as big beams in... hunting lodges, / we would find holy books in our beds, / n Tao Te Ching would come across running field!" If only. But such a conclusion is far o or optimistic, else many would have re turned spoken, redemption would be daily for all men. re Bly alizes that? in second movement "Night Journey," quesr suffers inexorable difficulty returning realm ex ordinary perience while preserving his vision. Used mental trave?ng, he finds himself constricted physical limitations waking reauty: "I think I am body / body rushes in ties me up." Aware his new clumsi ness, he is "ashamed at looking fish in water," for he is a fish out. 147
new being born inside him? "child in old moonlit villages brain"?is threatened with execution that Herod, waking ego social system which, as ego or persona, he finds himself a part. He discovers himself in a role that his nascent deeper, Self had not intended. Hearkening back imagery early West which characterized ' Shadow Goes Away," he realizes Suddenly I am those who run large railroads who st around fallen beast howung, who cannot get free,... This is not perfect freedom saints. at dusk, Having become one very people he would fight against, he realizes difficulty action after vision, dichomy between what he knows in absolute realm position he occupies in relative realm. With a fuller understing he has arrived at point at which he began we journey have shared with him in " Shadow Goes Away." is personality divided against itself: with fuller vision now, he sees how he has become his bror's vendor, betrayer shadow: I fall in my own hs, fences break down under horses, cities starve, whole wns women singing burial fields look I saw on my far's face, I sit down again, I hit my own body, I shout at myself, I see what I have betrayed. What I have written is not good enough. Who does it help? I am ashamed on sitting edge my bed. carrying He is ashamed looking in limpid pool moved fully from ecstasy journey And those restrictions include difficulty enough." In fourth poem, Bly spells as possible: his dreams. poem has restrictions return. making out nature journey poem "good as explicitly Here is some prose Once re was a man who went a far country get his inheritance n returned. 148
This, course, is (in phrase James Joyce system Joseph Campbell) in "monomyth" its briefest form: sry hero who is called from ordinary world experience in realm myster ious, where he battles various foes, conquers or converts m, a gains boon, his "inheritance," a life-resring elixir with which he recrosses threshold with which, after some readjustment, he transforms world or his vision it. uses Bly his water imagery suggest an intriguing relation between realm mystery boon snatched from it. pool, lake in which he has gazed, sea night through which he has traveled in dream vision, all now become "Water Drawn Up In Head." quesr now encompasses what once encompassed him. In same way that, in Judaic tradition, redeemed feast on now dehcious flesh monsters devouring Behemoth, Leviathan, Ziz, so very ocean sea night journey becomes elixir which nourishes poet, granting him serenity final poem joy "Extra Chorus" which follows it. This liquid optimism has already found voice in "Water Under Earth": we "everything need is buried..., it's under water guarded women." (And in " Turtle," "huge turtle eggs / Ue inl on floor old sea.") promise water is that consciousness can be bad in, nourished brought rebirth via fluid world unconscious. If tapped, subterranean sea can yield heaung balm that unites diverse aspects man fragmented within his Self joins him with all or men. Progression begins with regression, conscious realization with a descent in unconscious. re is a consciousness hovering under mind's feet, advanced civiuzations under footsole, climbing at times upon a shoelace! It is a willow that knows water under earth, I am a far who dips as he passes over underground rivers, who can feel his children through all distance time! mind, like a funerary willow, draws water from beneath earth manifests it in leaves swaying branches: water drawn up in head produces that fluid protean vision poems Bly has created, nourishes his vision himself all men. "When alone," when in privacy with wellspring unconscious, "we see that great mb [ material world] is not God," "We know Christ, who raised dead, started time. / He is not God, is 149
not called God." Trying find God outside ourselves, Bly suggests, is deny inner springs, water drawn up in head. "Best is let m lose mselves in a river:" best immerse in yourself energy unconscious, energy Self, learn from your dreams, visions intuitions that you are yourself transcendental; n drink from that knowledge continuously. So rar than saying Christ is God or he is not, it is better forget all that lose yourself in curved energy. I entered that energy one day... God he discovers himself be a part has no name, because he is beyond pairs opposites, good evil, kine predar: We have no name for you, so we say: he makes grass grow upon mountains, gives food dark cattle sea, he feeds young ravens that call on him. re is a nascent realization, a new Self, "anor being Uving inside" poet: "He is looking out my eyes. / I hear him / in wind through bare trees." It is wind in barren trees that alerts him his own birth, it is death old self that so confidently presages new. And "that is I am so why glad in fall." poet beside bare naked tree trunk waits for true nakedness come him as well. And as Jung observes, tree is ten a symbol for developing self, bringing forth energy from invisible underground reservoir unconscious be manifested in world light form. As Ginsberg ended Howl with a joyous footnote?not as a palinode, but affirm divinity horror he chronicled?so this strange ten painful oneiric journey, Bly appends "An Extra Joyful Chorus for Those Who Have Read This Far." In several ways chorus alludes heav ily Whitman. Its closing Unes ( indeed very title entire "Sleepers Joining Hs" sequence) bear strong resemblance open ing last section Whitman's poem " Sleepers": are sleepers very beautiful as y Ue unclod, y flow h in h over whole earth from east west as y lie unclod. And, chiasmatically, cal note Unes that Whitman uses close his poem 150 on a cycli
I will sp only betimes. a time with night... rise I will duly pass day O my mor return duly you Bly transforms in a paradoxical opening for his I love Mor. I am an enemy Mor. "Joyful Chorus": allusions are clear. Yet, though both poems record psychological night sea journeys, though both close with affirmations, similarities be tween poems are not continuous. Bly borrows from Whitman for his own ends, as we shall see. And so with technique. "Joyful Chorus," Bly's chant polymorph ous identity which echoes goes beyond bis hung protean shadow in " Shadow Goes Away," also recalls Whitman's chants uni versal identity. Here again, re are some important differences balance similarities. Whitman's sympatic identifications are usuauy directed ward commonplace possible, encouraging reader fol low along: I am acr actress... voter politician... A shroud I see? I am shroud... I wrap a body lie in cfin... Most in typically, words "Song Myself," "I am man... I suffered... I was re." on Bly, or h, opts include fan tastical folkloristic along with ordinary credible, which en courages reader relate se elements or symbouc quests or translate m in his own terms, but not engage directly in pro tagonist's own identification: I am ball fire woodman cuts out wolf's smach, I am sun that floats over Witch's house, I am horse sitting in chestnut tree singing. While both poets work within tradition psychic quest, is Bly also referring it, asking reader refer it, schematically. 151
Like Whitman, Bly makes use transcendent power aggre gate. catalogue beautiful ordinary terrible beginnings which dominates first sixty Unes section 15 "Song Myself" yields aggregate exhilaration Beginning; in " Sleepers" catalogue acr, nominee, stammerer criminal in an averaged aggregate sleep ing humanity allows Whitman say soul is always beautiful universe is duly in order... is in its place_ every thing diverse shall be no less diverse, but flow unite... y unite now. y shall For Bly's protagonist transcendent aggregate is experience completed quest: its no component parts, matter how painful, finally be come redeemed because ir place in whole. Even "fleeing along ground Uke a frightened beast" or being " last inherir crying out in deserted houses" become fit matter for a "Joyful Chorus" when pro tagonist realizes that he is at every moment "an eternal happiness fighting in long reeds." Each act contains imprint all ors, completed sequence. Bly's quesr images his Ufe at once everywhere at all stages most simultaneously. Perhaps summatively he is " man locked inside oakwomb, / waiting for lightning, only let out on srmy nights." He is that core life in tree Self, drawn from subter ranean waters now waiting, that old foliage has died, manifest himself in new spring. He is everyone "no one at all" simultaneously, for he is prior personality. Thus, in womb, aching deliver himself, he can paradoxically say: I love Mor. I am an enemy Mor, give me my sword. I in her leap mouth full seaweed. For he honors womb unconscious arational which he has re entered as embryo, he honors rational masculine desire translate that primeval wholeness in articulate world forms water leaves, sea sword. Furr, he sees feels archetypal nature universal possibility his experience?new incarnations new Bethlehems for all men who attend ir dreams: 152
Our faces shine with darkness reflected from Tigris_ panr rejoices in garing dark. Hs rush ward each or through miles All sleepers in world join hs. space. NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS MICHAEL ATKINSON is an associate pressor at English Univer sity Cincinnati. He is author several works Uterary criticism. MARVIN BELL is a using Guggenheim Fellowship stay at home. A new book his poems, Stars Which See, Stars Which Do Not See, will be pub lished Aneum in February. ROBERT BLY's next book will be Kabir Book: Forty-Four Ec static Poems Kabir, which Beacon Press will pubush in December. VANCE BOURJAILY's selection, "See Sa in is Funny Papers," from his new novel Now Playing at Canterbury (Dial Press). HENRY CARLILE is author Rough-Hewn Table (University Missouri Press, 1971). He teaches at Portl State University is recipient a 1976 National Endowment for Arts Fellowship. STEPHEN DIXON has a just completed novel, Work. NORMAN DUBIE teaches at Arizona State University. His work has ap peared in several national publications. In Dead Night was pub lished University Pittsburgh Press. RUSSELL EDSON's most recent book is Intuitive Journey & Or Works ( Harper & Row ). PETER EVERWINE won Lamont Award for Collecting Animals. DONALD FINKEL is Poet in Residence at Washingn University in St. Louis. His most recent book is A Mote in Heaven's Eye (Aneum). LOUIS GL?CK's House on Marshl was published Ecco Press in 1975. In 1976-77, she is at teaching University Iowa Writers Workshop. STEVEN GOLDSBERRY teaches at English University Hawaii. DONALD HALL's most recent book is Town Hill (Godine, 1976). DANIEL HALPERN's Street Fire was pubushed Ecco Press in 1975. MARK JARMAN teaches at Indiana State University at Evansville. His poetry is appearing in Kayak, Field, Poetry Northwest. He is in search a publisher for his book poems, Go Back Your Bairns, Mr. Knox. 153