Sunday, March 20, 2016

Edward Thomas: Birdsong

I had just learned of Edward Thomas a few years ago, thanks to Stephen Pentz, at his blog, First Known When Lost  (see sidebar for link).  Consequently I knew little of him except for his poetry.  According to the brief biography, he was already known for his many fine essays, critiques, and writings in natural history, when he met Robert Frost in 1914 who encouraged Thomas to write poetry.  Thomas took his advice and had produced many fine poems when, unfortunately, he was killed in action in WWI in 1917.

Therefore, I was surprised to find him in Nature Writing: The English Tradition, another of the unexpected authors in that anthology whom I had known from other genres.  The following comes from the excerpt found in that anthology, and I can see why Frost had encouraged him to write poetry.


"At the lower margin of the wood the overhanging branches form blue caves, and out of these emerge the songs of many hidden birds.  I know that there are bland melodious blackbirds of easy musing voices, robins whose earnest song, though full of passion, is but a fragment that has burst through a more passionate silence, hedge-sparrows of liquid confiding monotone, brisk acid wrens, chaffinches and yellowhammers saying always the same thing ( a dear but courtly praise of the coming season), larks building spires above spires into the sky, thrushes of infinite variety that talk and talk of a thousand things, never thinking, always talking of the moment, exclaiming, scolding, cheering, flattering, coaxing, challenging, with merry-hearted, bold voices that must have been the same in the morning of the world when the forest trees lay, or leaned, or hung, where they fell.  Yet I can distinguish neither blackbird, nor robin, nor hedge-sparrow, nor any one voice.  All are blent into one seething stream of song.  It is one song, not many.  It is the spirit that sings.  Mixed with them is the myriad stir of unborn things, of leaf and blade and flower, many silences of heart and root of tree, voices of hope and growth, of love that will be satisfied though it leap upon the swords of life." 

Edward Thomas (1878-1917)
"Hampshire"
from The South Country
Excerpt comes from Nature Writing, edited by Robert Finch and John Elder 


What do you think?  Is there something "poetic" about the above excerpt?  Was Frost being perceptive?

12 comments:

  1. Diction decisions become precise notes in the lyrical measures of the writer's song; hence, the caring writer becomes poet when he cares enough to choose only the precise notes. All other elements fall behind diction. Le mot juste.

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    1. R.T.,

      Diction is all?

      What makes it the best word?

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    2. Fred, for sakes of argument, let me say that le mot juste, chosen by the poet, appears in harmony with other words and elements, leading the reader/auditor to see with the mind's eye something simultaneously singular and universal; but I set aside that flimsy argument and defer to both Wordsworth (you've cited) and Dickinson (who said something about recognizing poetry when it blows her mind).

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    3. R.T.,

      Not that flimsy of an argument.

      Has Dickinson ever said anything about a poet or poems that "blows her mind"?

      Do we have any idea of what poetry she had read?

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    4. Fred, I don't have answers for your questions, but Cynthia Wolff's biography of Emily Dickinson (which I read but have mostly forgotten) is the one-stop source for all things worth knowing (and knowable) about the Belle of Amhurst.

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    5. R.T.,

      OK, thanks for the reference. I think it would be fascinating to find out what poetry and poets Dickinson read and liked.

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  2. i sure like the way he talks about birds. unfortunately i can no longer hear birdsong, but i remember what it's like and descriptions like the above bring it home; maybe that's some kind of definition of poetry: that which brings to mind real scenes vivid apprehension. or is that too pretentious...?

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    1. Mudpuddle,

      William Wordsworth said, “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”

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  3. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. Emily Dickinson
    Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/emilydicki164583.html

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    1. R.T.,

      Are you aware of anything Dickinson as said specific poets or poetry?

      Do we have any idea of what poets or poetry she had read?

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  4. Fred: First, thank you very much for mentioning First Known When Lost. Second, your closing remarks are right on the money. When Thomas talked to Frost about beginning to write poetry, Frost specifically suggested to Thomas that he should use some of the passages in this nature writings as the basis for poems, since Frost believed that those passages were already "poetic." Thomas followed this advice. Probably the best known example is Thomas's poem "Rain", which can be traced back to his book The Icknield Way. In her annotated edition of Thomas's poetry (Bloodaxe Books 2008), Edna Longley identifies several instances in which prose passages were transformed into poetry.

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    1. Stephen,

      Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I wasn't aware of the connection between some of his poetry and his prose writings nor about Frost's comments.

      I have the Longley edition, so I shall be sure to check the notes, if any, for each poem.

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