Swamp Formalism
for
As if they were not men,
amphibious, gill-like, with
wings, as if they were
sunning on the rocks, in a
new day, with their flickered
lizard tongues, as if they were
tiny and biting and black,
as if I was a hero or they were,
as if the they and these us that
arrived, out of the same blue
ground bogs, as if from my
bog that I saw the sun and
swam up to the surface, as if
the surface was shining, like a
lizard to embrace, as if the
random pain of lizard heads
on sticks were prettier to eat,
as if I didn’t kill the plants, the
water, and the air, as if the
fruit and the sheep were all
diamond shaped and melted,
allowing in the sun, underground,
crowned, in shadows, in the
main dust, from the self same
main dust spring.
Lisa
Jarnot’s “Swamp Formalism” is the third poem in her seven
poem suite, “My Terrorist Notebook.” If you have heard Jarnot read in
the last couple of years, you almost certainly have heard this poem before. It
appeared originally in the online journal, Can
We Have Our Ball Back & has appeared in at least two
anthologies, O Book’s antiwar anthology Enough
& After the Fall: Artists for Peace, Justice & Civil
Liberties, the online adjunct to The Art Paper’s own antiwar
efforts.
“Swamp
Formalism” is becoming, if it has not already become, Jarnot’s “anthology
poem,” the work for which she is most immediately recognized. Shanna Compton was right in suggesting that this poem would
be readily identified by a number of the readers of my blog. My defense is that
I couldn’t help myself. I think it’s one of the great poems of our, or any
other, time.
Besides,
I’ve wanted to type the words “Swamp Formalism” from the moment I first heard
Jarnot read this poem. Jarnot herself appears to have borrowed the title from
Jack Collom, who taught a course with this title at Naropa in the third
week of the summer program there in 2001, two months before 9/11
& the same week that Jarnot was teaching a class on Poetry, Analysis, and
Autobiography. Collom’s description of the course is:
Explorations in the
nature of poetry "hard and soft" resonant and full of surprise
"human and inhuman" we will read, write and talk about what poetry
may be, starting with the silliest fact and watching
it grow. Handouts. In class writing.
Bring paper, pen, simplicity and complications.
Whether
or not Jarnot sat in on the course, as some Naropa faculty are known to do, or
simply absorbed the title second-hand over the week, I do not know. What does
seem apparent, tho, is that it’s a perfect title for this work, joining as it
does the tale of Ulysses & the Sirens and something akin to the origin of
humankind, an almost Lovecraftian creation
myth, more Swamp Thing than Adam & Eve.
The
primary dynamic of the is not between these two tales
per se, but rather between the pull that exists betwixt them and a parallel formal tension in the
work between phrase & line. The reiterated phrase as if signals this not just by its emphasis, ten occurrences over
25 lines, but through where in the line it occurs, four times at the left
margin, six times embedded, every time but the first coming after a comma. A
third system that is perceptibly active in the poem is the contrast between multisyllabic words – amphibious,
prettier, allowing, underground – and the poem’s many (over 120 out of a
total 146) one-syllable words. A fourth is what I think of here as the waltz of
the comma, so carefully placed – only five of the 25 lines are without one
(while three have two). A fifth is the perpetual deferral of the main verb
phrase, put off in this single sentence poem that we almost do not notice that
it possibly never shows up at all. What amazes me most about this poem is that
Jarnot handles each of these elements as if they were separate instruments,
say, in a sextet. They are, to my ear, absolutely palpable when reading the
poem, especially aloud, and they’re as well integrated as anything ever written
by Duncan, Creeley, or
Crane.
It’s
a masterful music that leads to some extraordinary moments, my favorite being the
two seemingly parallel lines – the eighth & ninth – that start off with “as
if.” At one level, the first of these integrates grammatically with
imperceptible grace & ease, while the next thrusts itself forward with all
of the materiality unanticipated single-syllable words can muster, seven
consecutive bricks hurled at the readers head. The most awkward phrases – “the they and these us” – are, I would argue, the absolute
center of this poem as well as the instant when the first tale glides up
against the second.
As
majestic is the ending, starting with the 22nd line, the only one in
the poem to have two three-syllable words, followed then by a line with two
commas, divided very clearly into thirds. The 24th line introduces
the key phrase “main dust,” a phrase whose soft phonemes – s, ā, m – echo in the soft sounds of the line’s end,
springboard to the final lines three last words, thump thump thump,
one syllable apiece. Is the final word spring
the main verb at last, that old David Ignatow effect reborn here in a poem
with an ear & an air? That’s one possible reading, but only one.
The
poem is, I think, dedicated to Rumsfield because the question – hero or
monster? – may be the deepest of identity questions & p.o.v. counts for a
lot. Our actions in the world have meaning dependent upon our intentions, but
these, the poem suggests, are up for grabs.
“My
Terrorist Notebook” is one of four sections
in Black
Dog Songs, and frankly they all seem terrific, tho I’ve only
glanced thus far at the last two. I’ve written before that I think Jarnot is
one of the major poets of our time & everything I’ve seen here just
confirms this impression.
