In the past 50 years, poetry has broken away from its traditional relationship with music, and formed an attachment to painting. Craig Raine’s work, however, has both.
Craig Raine is an accomplished poet and his work rewards us for careful study. Returning again to his master work History: The Home Movie we can find examples of both beat-centered musical poetry, and poetry that is patterned on image, as is painting.
Here, in the poem, "1942: Arresting Ike," Raine blends beat, sound and image together to give us a startling vignette:
the lavatorial lope
*
of the famous Barbary apes,
limbs like lianas,
showing their tonsured rumps,
*
cushions of callus,
vulvas like strangled inner tube.
Cracking fleas
*
in teeth like bitten fingernails. (1)
Did you notice how the lines are staggered long, short, long, -- three beats, two beats, three beats? This manipulation of sound can bring to mind the natural gait of apes, whether loping along on knuckles and feet, or swinging from height to height.
Notice, too, how the sound of words works here. These few lines are packed with sound devices such as assonance:
famous/apes
fleas/teeth
callus/vulva
showing tonsured (sh sound)
*
as well as alliteration:
lavatorial lope
limbs lianas
vulva
*
and consonance:
cushions of callus
"Fleas" and "bitten" are close together visually, so our subconscious links them. This tells us that the apes are "flea-bitten." The word "callus" also tells us something about their bodies, and their lives.
"Bitten fingernails" ratchets up the feeling that these apes (and perhaps the people watching them) are nervous, perhaps going a little mad. "Strangled" drives the tension much higher.
In the last line here the sound devices seem to trail off, and the language becomes much more prosaic. As one might expect, in the lines to follow attention leaves the apes and returns to the people who are gazing at them. These human observers are wrapped up in their petty political squabbles, so the poetic language becomes pedestrian to match their emotional and spiritual state.
- Raine, Craig. History: The Home Movie. New York: Anchor Books. 1994. 270.
For more information about the poetry of war, and other related topics, please visit the article on The Unraveling Strangeness and Fredy Neptune.
Interested in serious technique? Our earliest articles cover the special devices used in poetic narrative. To view these and all articles in our series please click here.
