Awhile back, I got an e-mail message from an acquaintance, Bob, who attached a poem. Several things about the message surprised me. I hadn’t known Bob particularly well; way back, we might have been in a couple of poetry courses in Boston. Back then, Bob wrote conventional verse\u2014meter, rhyme, a story line\u2014and I thought him promising. Here he was, after being out of touch for years, sending me a poem in an entirely different style and asking me to comment.<\/p>\n

Here’s the draft he attached:
\nThe City Lane<\/b>
\nStood in the rain. An unearthly, an unwilling sound.
\nHis light and I, by the luminary rain,
\nacquainted, and acquainted still further.
\nI have interrupted, walked out.<\/p>\n

Call me in, the city proclaimed.
\nAnd to my eyes, on the height, one right?
\nOne wrong? Neither one?<\/p>\n

Back down? Explain?
\nThe feet have been far away. Came. But not
\noutwalked the beat of another time.<\/p>\n

When was I the saddest? I have looked
\nat houses. And still, I have
\ndropped a clock.<\/p>\n

I have been to the furthest back street with the night
\nagainst the sky. Say I have passed
\nover, have stopped.
\nNight watchman, cry good-bye.<\/p>\n

Bob’s e-mail was chatty, as befitted our long separation. When he came to the poem, he explained: \u201cI wrote the poem in night-school class at Goddard College. I have to tell you, the professor thought it was excellent\u2014and publishable. My feeling, though, is anything can be improved, maybe from good to great. (That sounds egoistical, I know, but, as I recall, you’re into the egoism stuff.) Anyway, I’d appreciate comments. And Walt: don’t praise everything just because my professor did. I’m serious about your comments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poets who write free verse are giving up an essential tool of their craft<\/p>\n

This was tough. I thought that as contemporary free verse went this was good. In fact, I liked it, even though I think poets who write free verse are giving up an essential tool of their craft. And why was Bob writing to me, anyway? I was no poetry professor. Maybe he just wanted to show off the poem, but couldn’t come out and say so. I procrastinated for a couple weeks. But the poem bothered me. I thought Bob had talent, but was heading into the fever swamps of contemporary poetry. (I sure couldn’t say that!)<\/p>\n

My e-mail, after some newsy comments, got to the poem. I said:<\/p>\n

\u201cI agree with your professor, Bob. There’s a lot here. You convey the feeling of the city’s loneliness, its impersonality. We feel the rain, the night, the broken images that lights cast on houses, streets. Also, I like your use of \u201cacquainted\u201d–the meetings in the city that never become friendships. There is a nice abruptness in \u201cI have interrupted, walked out.\u201d Sometimes, we can’t even sustain an acquaintance.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the way, the use of \u201cacquainted\u201d–twice\u2014is part of your easy movement between levels of rhetoric. Much of the language is simple: stood, walked, houses, clock. And yet, when you use another rhetoric (in words such as luminary, unearthly, proclaimed, acquainted) it works.<\/p>\n

I especially like the way you return to walking: walked, outwalked, feet, far away. Here, we sense that walking, especially late at night, can be part of the loneliness of the city, when, perhaps, only the \u201cwatchman\u201d (God?) is there to see us.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour many questions in the poem convey the sense of uncertainty\u2014surely an aspect of loneliness? The same impression is conveyed by the stanza about \u201cright\u201d and \u201cwrong.\u201d I hear the city asking, challenging, the \u201cI\u201d in the poem to decide, to take a stand, and yet, for this person, that is not possible. At the end, of course, there is the suggestion of passing, of permanent loss. Is this the fate of the modern city dweller: to pass through the night, and, ultimately, into the night–with only the watchman (again, God?) to say goodbye?<\/p>\n

\u201cBob, I’ve gone on at length because this poem is full of promising themes, promising images. You have conveyed a remarkable amount in a short poem.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving said that, Bob, I must raise some questions, and they aren’t about your poem only, but a trend in poetry that has been growing more dominant and pervasive for half a century. You see, for all the themes I pick up, all the implications I receive, all the feelings I sense: I don’t really know what is going on in this poem. I literally don’t know what you’re talking about.<\/p>\n

Across the entire spectrum of modern verbal communication, the minimal standard of competence is to make clear what you mean, avoid vagueness, come out and say it. Why is contemporary verse the sole exception? At no point in your poem am I able to follow the narrative: \u201cHis light?\u201d What is right or wrong\u2014or neither? Whose feet \u201ccame in\u201d? And so on. Yes, I get an image, I receive a sense of uncertainty, indecision. And someone or something (on feet) has walked a long way. In what writing, in any other medium, would this vagueness, lack of reference, deliberate difficulty, be tolerated? And yet, in poetry, it is supposed to be suggestive, even profound.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon’t get me wrong, Bob. There isn’t one word in this poem that’s wrong in itself. You could rewrite the poem in exactly the same words. The issue isn’t the language; the issue is what it means to communicate, even in the arts\u2014especially in the arts. Historically, literature been a bastion of clarity in language and communication, setting the standard.<\/p>\n