In "The Crowded Countries of the Bomb," George Oppen writes:
What is the name of that place
We have entered:
Despair? Ourselves?
That we can destroy ourselves
Now
Walking in the shelter,
The young and the old,
Of each other's backs and shoulders
Entering the country that is
Impenetrably ours.
Oppen is responding to the feeling that with the "bomb" that we have the capability to destroy ourselves and that this capability is something that we fear and that we have created. This feeling has become a space that is ours and that we don't completely understand, just as we don't understand ourselves.
That's interesting, but for me, the line breaks and syntax make this poem exciting. For example, the second and third stanza that I cite use simple language, but the meaning is complicated by the syntax. The adverb "now" is hard to place without punctuation. Is it that we can destroy ourselves when we want or that we can destroy ourselves at this moment? Or does it connect with "walking in the shelter"? Even more, "the young and the old" are "of" "each other's backs and shoulders." I want to read this as an Aeneas scene with his child and father, but I cannot because of the "of." It would be so much easier to read with "on" or "from," but "of" implies a different relation that is not so comfortable. In essence, the syntax helps with the uneasy feeling of the bomb and the lack of understanding our emotions and how they ended us up here.
What is the name of that place
We have entered:
Despair? Ourselves?
That we can destroy ourselves
Now
Walking in the shelter,
The young and the old,
Of each other's backs and shoulders
Entering the country that is
Impenetrably ours.
Oppen is responding to the feeling that with the "bomb" that we have the capability to destroy ourselves and that this capability is something that we fear and that we have created. This feeling has become a space that is ours and that we don't completely understand, just as we don't understand ourselves.
That's interesting, but for me, the line breaks and syntax make this poem exciting. For example, the second and third stanza that I cite use simple language, but the meaning is complicated by the syntax. The adverb "now" is hard to place without punctuation. Is it that we can destroy ourselves when we want or that we can destroy ourselves at this moment? Or does it connect with "walking in the shelter"? Even more, "the young and the old" are "of" "each other's backs and shoulders." I want to read this as an Aeneas scene with his child and father, but I cannot because of the "of." It would be so much easier to read with "on" or "from," but "of" implies a different relation that is not so comfortable. In essence, the syntax helps with the uneasy feeling of the bomb and the lack of understanding our emotions and how they ended us up here.
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