Poetry Friday: Seeing Things, Saying Things: UPDATED

I've long been a lover of Elizabeth Bishop's poetry, which subjects the objects, events, and creatures of this world to quiet, intense, but often wry scrutiny. I recall, too, the sculptor Rodin's advice to his secretary, Rainer Maria Rilke, when Rilke suffered from writer's block:  Go to the zoo. Rilke did, and the result was a series of remarkable poems, including "The Panther."

When I was in graduate school, a professor of mine liked to recreate Rodin's directive to Rilke:  Go to the zoo -- and then write a poem for class, she always added. The idea, obviously, was to go and look at animals, until something about some animal had worked its way into our imaginations and taken over, and to write a poem which was essentially about seeing. Seeing isn't everything, as we all know, but for most of us, ie those of us who can see,  the eye is the open window through which the mind begins to know what's outside. Rendering what we see into language both pins it down in a particularized moment -- Rilke's panther frozen in his endless pacing -- at least for the duration of the poem;  and also, inevitably, whether we mean to or not, imposes some conclusion on it. We may see neutrally (maybe), but conclusions are embedded in our words.

Not long ago, facing ongoing writer's block, I set myself Rodin's assignment. I didn't go to the zoo;  we don't have one here in Fiat. But I did look out of the dining room window, in the frame of which a colony of wasps was busy constructing a nest, and I tried to render what I saw of that operation:

The Paper Wasps

Their flaky gray pastry

swells between the storm

glass and the dining-room window.

It crawls with scissor-wings,

prickling needle-legs.

The great work progresses:

chewing, spitting, patting

the clustered abscesses, some

fitted already with cottony

warheads. Each crisp

infant, folded inside,

waits wide-eyed.

It's not Rilke, and it's not Bishop, but the experiment's always interesting to attempt. A highly-recommended assignment, for yourself or, if you're a teacher, for students.

Meanwhile, be sure to visit Teaching Authors today for the rest of the Poetry Friday roundup.

PS:  I don't know whether anybody's still reading out there, but after looking at this poem on the blog page, I thought it got off the ground too slowly, so I messed around with it some more. Like this:

The Paper Wasps

The great work progresses,

a flaky gray pastry

swelling in the window,

crawling with scissor-wings,

innumerable needle-legs.

All day they’re at it:

chewing, spitting, patting

the clustered abscesses, some

fitted already with cottony

warheads. Each crisp

infant, folded inside,

waits wide-eyed. 

So, like the eye doctor, I could ask you:  Which is better? A or B? This way? Or this way?

Cause I sure as heck don't know.

PPS:  Which is better? This way? Or this way? Or this way:

The Paper Wasps

Inside the storm window,

the great work progresses.

The gray pastry swells.

It crawls with scissor-wings,

prickling needle-legs.

All day they’re at it:

chewing, spitting, patting

the clustered abscesses, some

fitted already with cottony

warheads. Each crisp

infant, folded inside,

waits wide-eyed.

???


PPPS:   'K, so here's the rhyming version (stay tuned for the dance remix):

October Wasps

Inside the storm

glass, their gray

pastry swells.

Kept medium-warm

in late-midday

sun, it crawls

with scissor-wings.

The work progresses:

pattings, chewings.

Some clustered abscesses

are fitted already,

each with its cottony

warhead. Inside,

the infant, folded,

waits wide-eyed.

Don't worry, I'm not throwing away any previous versions. Nor have I settled on a favorite, though your comments are tremendously helpful.

Incidentally, I cut "crisp" in the penultimate line in this version, not only for the sake of something like meter, but also because I'm not sure they are crisp at that stage. I mean, the adults are for sure. I had one in my jacket pocket yesterday in the mountains. I put my hand in, and something stung me;  my fingers closed on a small object which can only be described as "crisp" (well, also "leggy"), and when I pulled it out, it immediately flew away.

But in the pupal stage, which is what I guess those cottony warheads indicate? I'm not so sure. According to some book Lissa Wiley read, butterflies at that stage are soup. Not so sure about wasps. Maybe I can sell this to someone in my house as a research project. At any rate, while one wishes to be poetic, one also wishes to be accurate.