THE SEASON OF PHANTASMAL PEACE by Derek Walcott, born in St. Lucia in 1930, awarded Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992

Then all the nations of birds lifted together
the huge net of the shadows of this earth
in multitudinous dialects, twittering tongues,
stitching and crossing it. They lifted up
the shadows of long pines down trackless slopes,
the shadows of glass-faced towers down evening streets,
the shadow of a frail plant on a city sill --
the net rising soundless at night, the birds' cries soundless, until
there was no longer dusk, or season, decline, or weather,
only this passage of phantasmal light
that not the narrowest shadow dared to sever.

And men could not see, looking up, what the wild geese drew,
what the ospreys trailed behind them in the silvery ropes
that flashed in the icy sunlight; they could not hear
battalions of starlings waging peaceful cries,
bearing the net higher, covering this world
like the vines of an orchard, or a mother drawing
the trembling gauze over the trembling eyes
of a child fluttering to sleep;
it was the light
that you will see at evening on the side of a hill
in yellow October, and no one hearing knew
what change had brought into the raven's cawing,
the killdeer's screech, the ember-circling chough
such an immense, soundless, and high concern
for the fields and cities where the birds belong,
except it was their seasonal passing, Love,
made seasonless, or, from the high privilege of their birth,
something brighter than pity for the wingless ones
below them who shared dark holes in windows and in houses,
and higher they lifted the net with soundless voices
above all change, betrayals of falling suns,
and this season lasted one moment, like the pause
between dusk and darkness, between fury and peace,
but, for such as our earth is now, it lasted long.

Good Morning All,

maybe i'm just the cranky one around here these days. i'm all for peace, and am sad at the prospect that peace might be just a phantasm. sadder still to agree that if there ever had been such a season, it was only an imperceptible moment, then gone. so, i'm hip to the theme.

but after the initial, very promising imagery of birds lifting up the net of shadows from the world, the lyricism becomes overloaded and imagery gets sort of stale:
They lifted up
the shadows of long pines down trackless slopes,
the shadows of glass-faced towers down evening streets,
the shadow of a frail plant on a city sill --

and the birds. all those birds. i like birds. (about a year ago, i posted a bird poem every day for a week. nobody cared, but i did.) i'm reading all those birds and i'm thinking bird shit. tons and tons of bird shit. bird mites. a billion or so blackbirds, in the midst of all this peaceful phantasm, stopping for lunch on my berry bushes. and more bird shit. Walcot's writing isn't magical enough for me to suspend belief in this poem.

those silvery ropes are going to land on my car. i just know it:
the ospreys trailed behind them in the silvery ropes
that flashed in the icy sunlight

something brighter than pity
this was the only moment that revived my interest-- and a tiny moment it was (sort of like the phantasmic peace, i guess) not enough to rehabilitate my dislike for the thing.

is Walcot suggesting that peace is so preposterous that he intentionally wrote it into a preposterous poem? not enough irony to support that theory.

this one didn't make my like-o-meter tick.

Derek Walcott’s “Season of Phantasmal Peace” is the most extraordinary poem I have read in years. He himself calls it a prayer and a vision of peace. But what most stands out for me is his over-arching image of birds gathering up and lifting a net of “the shadows of this earth.”

Such a task is not easy and requires “all the nations of birds…in multitudinous dialects.” But working together, the net rises higher and higher until --

there was no longer dusk, or season, decline, or weather,
only this passage of phantasmal light
that not the narrowest shadow dared to sever.

Is this a vision of angels, the potential of humans working together? I think so. As the net is lifted and the light shines through, the poet seems to suggest the possibility of man to transcend his fallen ways.

they could not hear
battalions of starlings waging peaceful cries,
bearing the net higher, covering this world
like the vines of an orchard, or a mother drawing
the trembling gauze over the trembling eyes
of a child fluttering to sleep;

Yes, the world is morally inadequate -- unable to hear the birds, although Adam and Eve could hear the birds before the Fall. But the world is capable of redemption, as the poet illustrates by indicating a sympathy between the birds and the world with his double use of “trembling” in describing the birds’ net as a mother's “trembling gauze” and describing the world as her “child fluttering to sleep” with trembling eyes.

It is a temporary peace, merely a “season” of peace --

this season lasted one moment, like the pause
between dusk and darkness, between fury and peace,
but, for such as our earth is now, it lasted long.

So short, in fact, that it’s like the “pause / between dusk and darkness.” But if the poem’s narrator was able to have this vision, perhaps others can as well. Perhaps we can take that visionary moment of peace and make it last longer. Let us not give up on the possibilities of Love.

I find this poem’s ideas and images stunning.

The nations of birds as metaphor for the nations of men struck me as particularly inane.

signed,

irascible grackle

p.s. I knew I was going to end up looking like a bird-hating, war-mongering rock head. I told myself, 'waltz, don't touch this one with a ten foot perch.." but i didn't listen to me. i never do.

I'm with waltz on this one; beautiful idea gunked up with too many words, too long lines, overextended metaphor (call in a ligament expert; I think it tore a hamstring!), etc.

But I think Walcott is talking about a particular instant:

like the pause
between dusk and darkness,

when (maybe?) shadows disappear, a soft light envelops everything

the trembling gauze over the trembling eyes
of a child fluttering to sleep;

and he fells, for an instant that seems longer than it is, there is peace in the world.

This is a good poem. Would be better if it were half as long.

Cutter

P.S. Why must the child flutter to sleep? Seems way too precious.

Hi, MaryAnn, The idea behind this poem -- that we all live in shadow, but it can be lifted, if only momentarily, and we can experience a moment of light and peace -- is really stunning and beautiful and hopeful.

The bird imagery is a little troublesome, not necessarily for me, but obviously from comments here, for some readers. I think it's the Disney influence and people see those little singing sparrows that fly around and merrily sew the flounces and bows on Cinderella's dress.

And that's unfortunate, because this is a really strong poem and so to have something mar its impact is frustrating. The author could have chosen angels, or a mad scientist with a shadow-stealing machine, or dogs to lift the shadows, and yet he chose birds. (When I try reworking the poem, the only substitute that works at all is humans of every race and nation, and I do believe Walcott already intended the birds to be a metaphor for that.)

Also, there is a nice contrast between the winged ones of the world taking pity on us wingless ones.

Waltz, I'm always so amused by your rants. Today you made me think about watching Ratatouille, where no matter how cute and sweet the little rat-protagonist was, I couldn't watch him stirring soups and adding herbs without a shudder regarding hygienic considerations.

I am not a fan of Derek Walcott, and here I get the usual DW routine of reading a poet who spends an inordinate amount of time trying to make what he sees, smells,hears, tastes interesting in themselves, blessed only with an excess of qualifiers that the poem becomes something like perfectly fine cup of coffee ruined with too many spoons of sugar. The problem, I guess, is that Walcott tries for elegance and transcendence and yet never convinces you that he's even looked out the window let alone taken a trip anywhere. There is so much rocking back and forth between obvious extremes of situation, so many adjectives and verbs seeking to convince you that details being offered are more exciting and significant because DW percieved and catagorized them. It is both arch and prosaic, a monotony of routine list making

they lifted the net with soundless voices
above all change, betrayals of falling suns,
and this season lasted one moment, like the pause
between dusk and darkness, between fury and peace,
but, for such as our earth is now, it lasted long.

It's not for me to demand what this means because that's the least interesting thing to worry about in a discussion of a work, but I would expect a competant poem to at least be able to evoke sensations, associations and the like toward a satisfying ambiguity; a certain genius with the language is required, and Walcott, Nobel Prize or no, hasn't that genius. The banal poeticisms of "soundless voices", "betrayals of falling suns" "the pause between dusk and darkness" and the like are arty rather than artful, It amazes a certain readership,but to me this borders on kitsche.

It amazes a certain readership,but to me this borders on kitsche.

After I discovered this poem last week, I did some research and found the poem in both Norton's Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and McClatchy's Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry.

Later, I went online and found praise for the poem from both Helen Vendler and Paul Breslin, among others.

But whoever does or doesn't like it, whoever is or isn't part of "a certain readership" doesn't matter to me. I like it and don't consider it kitsch, despite its evocation of big emotions.

As is always true: to each his -- or her -- own.

Mary Ann

MaryAnn: I enjoyed this poem. After several careful reads I felt I understood what the author wanted to say. I liked your July 4th offering even more. I am not ashamed to say I had to look up the word interpenetration. I think you emerged from the whole Empyrean thing clutching Mr. Donnelly’s heel, yet I felt there was way too much wrestling with the angel of death involved. Perhaps the blessing is worth it. It motivated me to compose and print out the following refrigerator posting: I risk absurdity and death when I become so derivative as to become unintelligible. (gORdian kNOT)

(gORdian kNOT)

Ha!

: - )

Do I understand every poem I read?

frayed knot

HAPpy 4th, HAP.

MA

You're not part of this "certain readership" I was referring to, MA, and you shouldn't take it personally. You and I have discussed our similarities and differences in tastes for a few years now, and you should know that I respect both your tastes and intelligence. My point is that Walcott appeals largely to folks who read much poetry, and certainly not those who read what's happening in the small presses, which is where the really interesting stuff is to be found. His style is over done composed for those who like the rhetoric rich and hyper qualified and which will pour over them like a warm shower ; there's nothing wrong with a warm showers, in themselves, but that isn't my idea of the point of reading. His poems make no psychic screws loosen, make no cogs come undone, cause no perceptual breakthrough. Billy Collins caters to the same audience, but I at least like Collins and admire his mastery of craft if not his depth. There are are few surface effects he's great at, and he has a lack of pretension that 's appealing.

My point is that Walcott appeals largely to folks who read much poetry, and certainly not those who read what's happening in the small presses,

Ted, did you mean to say

Walcott appeals largely to folks who DON'T read much poetry...

My view is that very few people of any kind read Walcott's poetry. However, I hope that Caribbean kids have to read it. Even though I think Walcott is tremendously ambitious (in a negative way), I hope those kids read his poems about the Caribbean's African heritage and not just the English poetry of the colonizers. I appreciated Walcott's comment that as a kid he had to memorize Wordsworth's sonnet about daffodils even though he'd never even seen a daffodil.

Some critic, might have been William Logan, said Walcott never met a metaphor he didn't like. Having recently read a bunch of Walcott poems, I know what he means. But I still like Walcott's extraordinary image of all those birds -- both literally and metaphorically - in this one poem.

Sometimes I like Wagner; sometimes I like Coltrane.
Sometimes I like a warm bath; sometimes I like a cold shower.
Sometimes I like Eliot; sometimes I like Walcott.
Sometimes I like Scotch; sometimes I like water.

MA