On Aug 23, 2007, at 6:59 PM, Jon Corelis wrote:
> "In that great poem A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child
> in London, with its dark, magnificent, proud movement, we see Death
> in its reality -- as a return to the beginning of things, as a robing,
> a sacred investiture in those who have been our friends since the
> beginning of Time. Bird, beast, and flower have their part in the
> making of mankind. The water drop is holy, the wheat ear a place of
> prayer. The 'fathering and all-humbling darkness' itself is a
> begetting force. Even grief, even tears, are a begetting. 'The
> stations of the breath' are the stations of the Cross."
>
> -- Edith Sitwell
>
>
> Is the unstated fact that the poem is about a child who died in the
> Blitz make this a political poem? Does knowing or not knowing it
> change the poem?
In as much as the words on the page are not the poem (which is the
result of a reader's interaction with the words on the page), the answer
to the second question is yes, just as not knowing the dictionary
meaning
of a word changes the poem the reader is making of the words on the
page.
With regard to the first question, I suppose the poem is political to
anyone who thinks it's political. The poem is only about a child who
died in the Blitz to those who know more about the context of the
writing of the words on the page than most readers might. But even
they are not required to think of it as being about (esp. only about) a
child who died in the Blitz.
I've heard it argued that all poems are political, in one way or
another,
and somewhat agree.
"Context is everything that content is not."
--Anon.
Halvard Johnson
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