What do you make of this poem, by James Wright, called “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota”?
Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year’s horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.
Here’s a video of James Wright reading the poem. Worth a click.
The first thing anyone wants to know, when reading this poem, is where does that last line come from? From a “knowing-things-about-poetry” perspective, one should think about Rilke’s poem that ends “You must change your life.” From the perspective of being an interesting person, though, I think the best response is simply ask, “Is there a way I could imagine saying that line, and if so, what is that way?”
I wonder if farmers, though, wonder about “last year’s horses”? Do droppings stick around through a Minnesota winter?
From their website, here’s a picture of Pine Island, MN:
Find it between Mpls and Rochester; it is not at all an island:
I also wonder who Bill Duffy was. This excellent memory by Robert Bly introduces him well:
Somewhere around 1957 when Carol Bly and I had moved into the farm near Madison, we passed on the way to Minneapolis a sign that said Clara City. Carol said, “I think Christina Bratt lives here. I knew her in graduate school at the U. She married a man named Bill Duffy, and they’re teaching in the Clara City schools.” “Let’s go find them.” We did find their house in Clara City, and I recall that ten minutes later the telephone rang. It was the superintendent. He announced, “Mr. Duffy, it’s not necessary to discuss prostitution in the seventh grade.” Well, that set the tone. It was a beautiful seed-image. Bill said, “Well, I thought I’d just try to catch their attention by talking about New Orleans a little.” Bill turned out to be a marvelous teacher, though occasionally he did have trouble with superintendents. We became friends that day.
Bly goes on to recount how they started a poetry magazine and rejected all the submissions while drinking whiskey in a cabin by a lake. Idyllic, and a good conception of how poetry should generally be treated (drunk, and assuming it’s bad). Bly does note that they did accept poems by famous poets Gary Snyder and David Ignatow, which kind of ruins it.
How much of the success of this poem relies on the buddy system inherent in publishing?
The poem was published in The Paris Review in 1961.
Ann Beattie published a story called “Yancey” in The Paris Review in 2015 that references this poem at length, even reprints it entirely. Perhaps this was allowed since the magazine held the rights? We don’t, but here’s an excerpt of the story:
He nodded. He said, “If you were to recommend one book of poetry I should read, what would it be?”
“Do you prefer reading older poetry, or are you interested in new poetry?”
“Let’s say newer. Because I’ve never read recent poetry at all. We subscribe to magazines that print poetry, but I skip over it. I’m an equal-opportunity idiot, I guess you’d say. I don’t read cartoon captions either.”
“Tell me a little about yourself,” I said. “Sentimental? At all mystical? Do you like a poem that tells a story, or a poem that’s more of an enigma?”
“I liked Robert Frost when I was at VMI,” he said. “I think he would have been the most recent poet we read.”
“And I’ll bet they taught you all wrong. I’ll bet they told you ‘The Road Not Taken’ was about making important choices and exhibiting free will, didn’t they?”
“I don’t really remember. I just remember that my roommate got two days in detention because he didn’t memorize it.”
“Are you Facebook friends now?”
“With Hank? No, he’s not on Facebook. He’s in jail in Delaware. For menacing his ex-wife.”
“My daughter’s wife was stalked by her ex-boyfriend. She says there’s no connection between her coming out and his doing that, but you have to wonder. He was an awful man. He slit her tires once. There’s still a restraining order against him, though they’ve heard he went back to Chicago.”
He shook his head slowly, lips pursed.
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “He’s not at all like Robert Frost, but I think you might like the poems of James Wright. My favorite poem by him is ‘Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota.’ ” I held on to the banister and sat on the step. Yancey settled on her haunches next to me. When was this man ever going to leave, when was the door going to open with a great heave, when would the vole have to race into its hole, the snake take a break, the rabbit hide by habit, eyes bright and ears perked to the crackle of grass?
I cleared my throat. Reciting poetry while sitting was a little like trying to sing when flat on your back in bed, but I wanted him to hear the poem, and I’d been standing long enough.
“Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota”
Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year’s horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.“Is that really a poem?” he finally said.
“What else would it be?”
“I’ve never heard anything like that. The last line comes out of nowhere.”
“I don’t think so. He could have said that from the beginning, but he gave us the scene so that we’d be seduced, the way he’d been, and then he changed the game on us—on himself—at the last moment.”
“That’s the kind of guy who’d stick a pin in a balloon!” he said. “I mean, thank you very much for reciting that. I’ll get a book of his poetry and write to let you know my reaction.”
“That’s good,” I said. “Any day’s good when you get someone to buy a book of poetry who wouldn’t ordinarily do it.”
“You thought I’d identify with the guy in the hammock,” he said. “And I guess I do, to be honest.”
“Most people who are being honest feel that way at least some of the time, in my experience.”
I love Ann Beattie.