Volume 10 - Issue 1, February 15, 2008 - Lake Chapala Review
Volume 10 - Issue 1, February 15, 2008 - Lake Chapala Review
Volume 10 - Issue 1, February 15, 2008 - Lake Chapala Review
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Page <strong>10</strong> <strong>Lake</strong> <strong>Chapala</strong> <strong>Review</strong><br />
<strong>February</strong> <strong>2008</strong><br />
Be-Mused<br />
by Michael Warren The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm<br />
Last month I wrote about Wallace Stevens, and I indicated<br />
that his poetry was difficult and full of obscure allusions.<br />
Here is a simpler more meditative poem.<br />
The house was quiet and the world was calm.<br />
The reader became the book; and summer night<br />
Was like the conscious being of the book.<br />
The house was quiet and the world was calm.<br />
The words were spoken as if there was no book,<br />
Except that the reader leaned above the page,<br />
Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be<br />
The scholar to whom the book is true, to whom<br />
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.<br />
The house was quiet because it had to be.<br />
The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the<br />
mind:<br />
The access of perfection to the page.<br />
And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,<br />
In which there is no other meaning, itself<br />
Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself<br />
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.<br />
The magic of this poem with its iterations and alliterations<br />
is that the reader is lulled into a kind of trance. We become<br />
the reader in the poem, identified with the book, the words<br />
and the summer night. There is no other reality than that<br />
which exists inside our heads and the book and the words<br />
become more real than so-called real life. Stevens uses<br />
simple words and repetitions of “quiet” and “calm” so that<br />
the poem is like a rhythmic chant. “The quiet was part of<br />
the meaning, part of the mind: The access of perfection to<br />
the page.”<br />
I really like the mood that this poem evokes. To be<br />
properly enjoyed, it should be read aloud so that you can<br />
hear the cadences and appreciate the music of the words.<br />
For example, listen to the sibilants at the end – “…itself is<br />
calm, itself is summer and night, itself is the reader …” Some<br />
commentators have found echoes of Buddhist philosophy<br />
(which Stevens admired and studied) in this poem. It is true<br />
that there are multiple identifications of meaning – with<br />
consciousness, with truth, with summer and night, and with<br />
quiet and calm. In the end the reader is the poem and that is<br />
all you can say. Analysis tends to destroy its delicate fabric.<br />
As the Buddha liked to say: “It does not edify.”<br />
Next month I will be discussing Norman MacCaig<br />
(19<strong>10</strong>-1996), a Scottish poet who was extremely prolific and<br />
who often gave public readings of his work in Edinburgh<br />
and elsewhere. His poetry, in modern English, is known for<br />
its humour, simplicity of language and great popularity.