NOTES for studying WHALE SONGS IN THE AURORA BOREALIS page 5
29. Crazy Mirror Houses
Synopsis: This poem is the narrator's quest to find his/her life partner and addresses life events that impair natural instincts of who that significant one is. The narrator scantly remembers a vocal projection, then a visual image despite failure in achieving the end of his/her quest; which heightens the feeling of frustration for not having yet succeeded. When the narrator finally stops searching so desperately, the life-partner appears and success is achieved. Here, the audience is offered the concept of "trying too hard" and "how much is too much". The power of karma and destiny, coincidental and synchronistic timing, life goals and purposes and how much of life might be predestined are at play. The mirrors theme provides an alternate level of exploration: Is the narrator truly seeking a soulmate or a spiritual understanding of self? If spiritual, does the decision to stop focusing on this compulsion actually enable it to come to fruition? Yeats also used mirrors as a symbol in his writing.
Lyric: 2 cinquains in a predominantly AABBB rhyme scheme plus a post-script line at the end.
30. The Fish-Man
coming soon
31.Groping in the Seventh Sphere
coming soon
32. Pandering and Self-Discussion
Synopsis: The narrator’s desire for spiritual love with “Greystone” argues with physical attraction and, in the end, forms an alliance between the two. The image of Greystone as the smooth, secure form of love itself is revisited and allows the reader to extrapolate that the narrator might actually be in love with the idea of love itself and not any specific identity. In re-visiting “Whispers in the Heavens” Greystone is a wizard who is a friend to the masculine and feminine universal principles and he functions alongside of Immortal Rose (the embodiment of passionate love). The narrator’s decision that both spiritual and physical love passions could have victory with Greystone suggest a Greystone/Immortal Rose co-relationship while leaning back on Greystone’s ability as a wizard to change according to situation and circumstance.
Rhyme and Metrics: 5 verses of 5 lines each in an AABBC rhyme scheme.
33. Incarnate Mirror
Synopsis: In this poem, the narrator looks into a past life and sees the aged self at that point in time. The use of such memories is contemplated as they relate to the current life and the nature of death. Their purpose is also considered. The narrator moves from reminiscing into a phase of conversation with the reader in the third sextet and portrays the adult rigidity that failed to accept a child's ability for wise thinking. A decision to disregard them gives flight to the child's spiritual journey beyond its role models; nature, enveloped in the body of the tiny bird, becomes an affirming companion. In a final twist, the narrator returns to a derisive attitude in acknowledging the reality that for some, the prescription of death is simply to give rest to the weary (and for them, not to allow further evolution or ascension).
Lyric: 5 sextets with predominantly rhyming couplets followed by a single, conclusive couplet.
34. He Speaks of His Own Undoing
Synopsis: Reminiscent of Yeats' poems on aging, this poem uses poetic license to annotate Yeats' personal relationships in a rather liberal yet easily referenced manner. "A Gregory woman" is Lady Augusta Gregory, with whom Yeats was a close friend. They, with others, were the founders of The Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Ireland and instrumental in bringing about a revival in Irish Gaelic culture. As Yeats spent quite a bit of time visiting "Coole Park", the Gregory Estate, also writing there, conversations between the two of them regarding his woman troubles are fairly inevitable. "A Shakespeare woman" is Olivia Shakespeare, who Yeats met in New York and had an intimate relationship with. "Gonne" is, of course, reference to Maud Gonne, well documented as being the lifelong passion and obsession of Wm. Yeats. She is the "feisty trumpeter". "George" is Yeats' wife, Bertha Georgina Hyde-Lees, who, although she became his wife could never quite manage to "chase" Gonne from his emotions. "Picloid" means woodpecker and it is to this concept in the 3rd line that the 2nd last line of the poem returns; albeit in a slightly different context.
Imagery: Verses 1 and 3 refer to a sun setting and rising in retrograde. The purpose, as fitting the aging theme, is to portray a reality that seemed out of place to Yeats in his life (and he did despise his own aging process). The rising of a setting sun is the arrival of death as a new day. Verse 2, lines 4-8 contain sexual images suggestive of masturbation. Lyric: 3 octets - the first with an ABABABAB rhyme scheme, the last two having an AABBAABB scheme.
35. Cormac and the Witch's Curse
coming soon
36. Sister-Brother-Sisterhood
Synopsis: In this poem, a voice inside the mind of the poet speaks as a reassurance that she is exactly who she believes in both past and present life tenses. In so relating this, the poet transfers the same confidence for each reader in his/her own life. The poem suggests an ability for “automatic writing” from a spiritual source and an awareness that spirits or masks (depending on perspective) are never too far away. Indeed, this poem was written in a meditative trance and required absolutely no editing.
Lyric: 4 quatrains in an AABB rhyme scheme.
37. Bandaged Daemons
Synopsis: The narrator in this poem is a reincarnated poet speaking to another reincarnated poet and recognizing a bond that has not only kept them together from one life to the next but has added a new twist; instead of being male/male friends as before, they are now male/female lovers. Verse four suggests some spiritual ramifications to having achieved public notoriety: while the public keeps the spirit of the narrator alive through thoughts, studies, additional literature (ie biographies), structures of pursuant belief, etc., the poet’s spirit cannot rest and so neither can its daemon (opposite) for the purpose of balance. While this poem is a lamentation in one sense, it is also a poem of joy and continuing dreams.
Lyric: 5 quatrains in a predominantly AABB rhyme scheme with a single-word appended to each. When linked, the appending words provide their own summary of the poem – “eternal…ever…bleeding…coagulated…together”.
38. The Woman's New World Breath
Synopsis: Inspired by Yeats’ poem “The Man Who Dreamed of Faeryland” this poem has a hypothetical setting in which the narrator continues the saga and suggests that Yeats (who dreamed of Faeryland) not only found “no comfort in the grave” but returned in a subsequent life to carry the discomfort again. This discomfort was his obsession with Maud Gonne “his mind on silken dress” and his “discomfort for a kiss”. He returns unwillingly as a female whose quest is to now find that same kiss, but from a male. Yeatsian references are “Lissadell” and “Dromahair” (Irish locales) and golden fleece is an allusion to Troy. Greystone is a linking reference to other poems within the Whale Songs chapbook.
Lyric: 2 verses, 12 lines in an ABBA-CDDC-EFFE rhyme scheme.
39. Shadow of a Last Known Course
Synopsis: This poem is what one might call a “widow poem”. It is the reflection of the life events between Ronda and her beloved, yet estranged, husband David. She equates her relationship to a ship set out on the ocean and left to its mercy. From her “hindsight harbour” she acknowledges the ease with which that love relationship (as is the case for many other couples) was lost. She refers to the Greek mythological sirens whose goals are to lure sailors away from all hope of rescue with enticements (wine, music, sex, etc.). She then reflects on her youthful marriage and the loss of this love relationship – “a Bermudan compass deaf” (triangle of herself, her husband and a siren lover; another woman and alcohol), acknowledging that he “the green captain” longed to be home yet never returned. She presents her own grief of estrangement from him as the “plaintive woes of a sorrowed woman” (an allusion to Helen of Troy as cited in Helen, Euripides, Helen. 165ff.) and her “hindsight prayers” that followed their separation. In the end, Eller reflects on what she’s learned; that although only “love’s bones” remain to return home on the changed tide, the siren (whose mythological island is littered with victim’s bones) could not keep his - because she was never able to wrestle the focus of his true love onto herself. There is a bittersweet acceptance here that while life couldn’t keep love inside its safe harbour it was returned to her in death (as during the final weeks of life he repeatedly asked other people to find her).
Lyric: 5 quatrains in an ABAB rhyme scheme plus a final tercet in AAA rhyme.
40. Shadeless Shades
coming soon
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