On Recuperation
English Department 5/15/05 10:05 PM
Deleted: sounding
Stephen J. West
English Department 5/15/05 10:06 PM
Deleted: has been
Following the crisis of the intellectual self in dialogue with the poetic “I,” my confidence
dissolved timidly into the subtext; but it is here and now that I am reborn in red to reencounter
the criticism of these blue lines, to revise and reshape myself in this marginal mosaic, and in the
time in between, my critical and creative self is recuperating…
Of course, the “I” is present; the poet appears to be speaking from his familiar posture in
the margins; this revisionist constellation assumes the voices of a number of disciplinary critics
and I am now renewed in the polyphonic point of view. If this is my attempt to reconcile my
critical and poetic selves within this textual compost, to overcome the clichéd fear of red pen
corrections and the coming to terms with criticism that only now I am capable of doing, then, the
polyphony of voices I assume to portray this event displays at best a hesitant advocacy. But, you
may ask, is this the poet who years earlier sang “my fit is mastering me!” while sinking to the
depths of a “stunned” state of abject silence, only to “rise extatic through all” with a resounding
“Stand back!” and confident “troop[ing] forth replenished with supreme power” toward
1
viability? Where is this resolve now? Why the hesitation?
As the poet scatters and adopts varying critical voices throughout this work in a nonlinear
Stephen West 3/7/08 1:57 PM
Deleted: have acknowledged again and
again by critic
Stephen West 3/7/08 1:55 PM
Deleted: I find it interesting that
Stephen West 3/7/08 1:55 PM
Deleted: Whitman’s
English Department 5/15/05 10:07 PM
Deleted: decidedly
Stephen West 3/7/08 1:58 PM
Deleted: “appropriate poetic posture”
English Department 5/15/05 10:07 PM
Deleted: ;
English Department 5/15/05 10:09 PM
Deleted: For our bard that
English Department 5/15/05 10:09 PM
Deleted: …
English Department 5/15/05 10:09 PM
Deleted: where
Stephen West 3/7/08 1:46 PM
Deleted: Whitman
Stephen West 3/7/08 2:05 PM
Deleted: to communicate the war
English Department 5/15/05 10:10 PM
Deleted: /
English Department 5/15/05 10:10 PM
Deleted: war-communicating
English Department 5/15/05 10:11 PM
Deleted: English Department 5/15/05 10:12 PM
Deleted: As
Stephen West 3/7/08 2:10 PM
Deleted: //
narrative fashion, so too is his abject silence and “stand-back” resolve also presented non-
English Department 5/15/05 10:13 PM
Deleted: the
sequentially. The critic will be able to once again overcome the “stun” of the “whirl and din” and
Stephen West 3/7/08 2:11 PM
Deleted: poem
sound an optimistic advocacy of this revisionary project. This turmoil appears overwhelming as
English Department 5/15/05 10:13 PM
Deleted: resigning
the essay portrays a poet resigned to fanciful dreams of rejection and what “[he] sought to
Stephen West 3/7/08 2:12 PM
Deleted: ,;”), to a
1
From the 1855 “Song of Myself,” from WW: Poetry and Prose, 66-71.
Stephen West 3/7/08 2:12 PM
Deleted: of “Nature” and “the splendid silent
sun”
escape” therein,, to a return to the conflict echoing in time in the reopening of this space, to an
innocent anticipation that appears necessary and desirable.
We see in this essay that his
optimism has dissipated into anxiety, and is looking for its way back out again.
2
Following this lyrical move to withdraw, indeed “Over the Carnage” prophetic rose a
voice offering “Be not dishearten’d—Affection shall solve the problems of Freedom yet,” and
3
“Those who love each other shall become invincible”. [The previous sentence does not track—
syntax is flawed. Which seems, in retrospect, a justified little criticism that I can’t help but agree
with. I thought it was beautiful when I wrote it, and I remember being too in love with the sound
and feel of Whitman’s voice within my own to be conscious of its mechanical flaws. But then
there was all this blue (which, just there, if you’ll notice, the recuperation is encapsulated in the
irony of the color of that word) that told me otherwise. My critical confidence was damaged,
English Department 5/15/05 10:14 PM
Deleted: ;
Stephen West 3/7/08 2:12 PM
Deleted: the beginning of…the conflict
... [1]
English Department 5/15/05 10:15 PM
Deleted: As per this poem,
Stephen West 3/7/08 2:16 PM
Deleted: poem
English Department 5/15/05 10:16 PM
Deleted: t…is optimism has dissipated...into
[2]
Stephen West 3/7/08 2:18 PM
Deleted:
... [3]
Stephen West 3/7/08 9:59 PM
Deleted: reclusive
English Department 5/15/05 10:16 PM
Deleted: Stephen West 3/7/08 2:19 PM
Deleted: poetic
English Department 5/15/05 10:17 PM
Deleted: /
was made embarrassed and ashamed, and when considered now, even after being unexamined
for years, there is a subtle twisting squirt of stomach acid, a perspiring creep along my inner
thighs, my sternum, my nape, and now, just now, it has become beautiful again in this reopened
discussion, however contrived and cumbersome you might think it is.] With these lines, it
appears that I find resolve.
But there remains a complication—for whom is this resolving hope-call evoked: for the
critic or for the poet? As those familiar with the essayistic prerogative are aware, this “I”
contains multitudes—critical and poetic selfhood…and the project that is the muse of this
Stephen West 3/7/08 2:27 PM
Deleted: Whitman … finds that
... [4]
Stephen West 3/7/08 3:22 PM
Deleted: nation …ritic or for the poet? ...
This
[5]
“project.” [I don’t follow this. I am not ashamed, and if I contradict myself, then I contradict
myself, and my reshaping only adds to that.] As this project continues, we are confronted with a
previously unfamiliar poetic voice, in the personal relationship with his reader, attempting to
2
3
From Whitman’s 1865 Drum-Taps, 47-48.
DT ’65, 49.
English Department 5/15/05 10:24 PM
Deleted: n…previously unfamiliar
... [6]
Stephen West 3/7/08 3:23 PM
Deleted: ;…in the spirit of democratic ... [7]
relate healing with a vulnerable intimacy engaging the text at a personal level. We hear that tone
again which echoes a dialogue within the margins in a number of ways. [For you! For us! In a
number of ways, it’s the dialogue I’ve always been imagining!] And just now, bracketed off
from the rest, the “extatic” poet with his advocating “I” triumphantly returns to announce a
resolve in the midst of crisis.
The trying hardship of growing-pangs, finding again the
Stephen West 3/7/08 6:21 PM
Deleted: democracy …ith “manly love”
...and
[8]
English Department 5/15/05 10:25 PM
Deleted: Here,
Stephen West 3/7/08 2:52 PM
Deleted: in Drum-Taps,
English Department 5/15/05 10:25 PM
Deleted: we again are met with this tone
through echoes of that cluster
humanistic cornerstone of his philosophical/poetic vision in the face of someone else’s criticism,
Stephen West 3/7/08 2:53 PM
Deleted: Calamus …n a number of ways.
... [9]
providing a reason to edit one’s self like this, finding purchase in the most unlikely places, and
English Department 5/15/05 10:26 PM
Deleted: seemingly
often when seeing with experienced eyes that those shameful spaces we keep locked up may
Stephen West 3/7/08 3:09 PM
Deleted: poetic …esolve in the face …idst
... [10]of
always have a chance, possibly, for further consideration, to hopefully, perhaps, always have a
place.
However, the creeping doubt lingers in the final lines, which lead into troubling questions
of authenticity and of relevance in terms of poetic voice and critical stance, with what appears to
be an observation of the folly of his search for resolution. Assuming an authoritative posture, I
ask in Whitman’s words, “Were you looking to be held together? By an agreement on paper?
Nay —nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.”6 At first it appears that the “you” of
English Department 5/15/05 10:27 PM
Deleted: as we
Stephen West 3/7/08 3:13 PM
Deleted: into the…nto most …roubling
... [11]
English Department 5/15/05 10:28 PM
Deleted: /
Stephen West 3/7/08 3:02 PM
Deleted: , “Did You Ask Dulcet Rhymes
From Me?”…
... [12]
the line refers to the nation “en masse,” and that it is castigating the foolish methods used to deal
English Department 5/15/05 10:28 PM
Deleted: as
with the pressing personal issues at hand, but the “you” assumes a stance of self-doubt and
Stephen West 3/7/08 3:01 PM
Deleted: nation as it (and he)
scrutiny—one of poetic self-humility—as the poet questions his previous faith in the success of
English Department 5/15/05 10:29 PM
Deleted: seemingly knowing/
his hopeful offer for an “agreement on paper” of comradeship and democratic unity. In this, the
Stephen West 3/7/08 3:16 PM
Deleted: Whitman … asks,…in Whitman’s
... [13]
poetic self-questioning of the bard-in-crisis quietly overshadows the overt outward chastisement
English Department 5/15/05 10:29 PM
Deleted: /…cohere.”.… At first it appears
... [14]
of the practice itself, and the “extatic I” recedes once again.
Stephen West 3/7/08 3:18 PM
Deleted: politica…ersonall…issues at...hand,
[15]
6
DT ’65, 50.
Recuperation again lurks within this architecture, but this time in terms of tone rather
than theme. As the dialogue is littered with questions and illustrations regarding the failed
attempts of a divided self to realign, the next phase in reconciliation begins as a personally
vulnerable poet addresses his reader as the spurned lover. [In spite of all of this, I still love
you…] The poet attacks the expectations of his readers, and by extension of his poetry, his
vision of practice and self, and his philosophy of critical viability as voiced therein. He then
questions his readership’s commitment and relationship to him and his work--“Did you find what
I sang erewhile so hard to follow, to understand?”—and retorts in the third line with an
explanation: “Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to understand—nor am I now”;
here the poet exclaims that he was not singing for his readers as a leader and teacher, nor is he
now—likewise, he is admitting that he himself does not understand what is occurring at this
moment, just as I have come to believe that as I release the reigns just a touch, soft and
English Department 5/15/05 10:31 PM
Deleted: With
Stephen West 3/7/08 3:24 PM
Deleted: Calamus…ecuperation again...lurks
[16]
English Department 5/15/05 10:32 PM
Deleted: Calamus is again lurking—
Stephen West 3/7/08 3:26 PM
Deleted: “Over the Carnage”…he dialogue
... [17]
English Department 5/15/05 10:32 PM
Deleted: similarly …s a personally/ ... [18]
Stephen West 3/7/08 3:26 PM
Deleted: Whitman/
English Department 5/15/05 10:33 PM
Deleted: spurned
Stephen West 3/7/08 3:27 PM
Deleted: With the opening line’s question,
English Department 5/15/05 10:35 PM
Deleted: delineation
Stephen West 3/7/08 3:28 PM
Deleted: ?,…of his poetry, his vision ...
of [19]
English Department 5/15/05 10:36 PM
Deleted: : …-“Did you find what I sang
... [20]
vulnerable, that you will just barely feel the most sincere tremor of my self, and that means
everything to me now.
With a subtle tone of irony, the poet criticizes his readers for not understanding him—his
disgust is apparent as he asks, “—What to such as you, anyhow, such a poet as I?—therefore
leave my works,/ And go lull yourself with what you can understand;/ For I lull nobody—and
you will never understand me.”7 Enter stunned abjection, initiate poet-self doubt [what is “poetself doubt”? Do you mean poetic self-doubt? I don’t follow this, and despite my desire to do
violence against these questions as they huddle here unprotected, I will instead let these words
from my past speak for themselves and remove my newest self from the fray. But remember
7
DT ’65, 50.
English Department 5/15/05 10:37 PM
Deleted: old
Stephen West 3/7/08 3:30 PM
Deleted: Old-testament Testament
chastisement offered by God to his illworshipping Israel,
English Department 5/15/05 10:38 PM
Deleted: /…therefore leave my works,/
... And
[21]
Stephen West 3/7/08 3:35 PM
Deleted:
dear reader, as I lay here prone in your hands with no new words left to write, that you and I are
never more than our former selves, and we contain multitudes].
This is true, but even more important are the echoes of the communicative relationship
between poet and reader. I would suggest that these respective moments illustrate the most
dynamic instances of reader/poet relations, where the “you” and the “I” assume some of their
most specific orientations. To this end, the [??] troubled use of shifting personae and the
receding “I” throughout is central to understanding the place of the poet in relation to his readers
and his project—his sense of self and “reconstructive” project.
The poet dynamically deploys the relationship between “you” and “I” the “you” is at
English Department 5/15/05 10:48 PM
Deleted: contest
English Department 5/15/05 10:49 PM
Deleted: spastic and
English Department 5/15/05 10:49 PM
Deleted: the poetic
English Department 5/15/05 10:50 PM
Deleted: -positioning
once personal, making demands of the individual reader, as well as communal, speaking to all
individuals. I believe that this constant indecision is due to the changing circumstances and
place of his work, his philosophy, his vision—his voice—as his initial posture on the alignment
of body and soul, poet and nation retains validity but now requires a reconfigured
communicative vehicle.
English Department 5/15/05 10:51 PM
Deleted: waffling
English Department 5/15/05 10:52 PM
Deleted: is still legit, merely needing