american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang
american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang
american political poetry in the 21st century - STIBA Malang
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
EQUIVOCAL AGENCY 99<br />
Vietnam War—<strong>the</strong> more visible forerunner to Sam Hamill’s Poets<br />
aga<strong>in</strong>st <strong>the</strong> War, which so angered Laura Bush—that organized<br />
protest read<strong>in</strong>gs and public demonstrations. In 1968, Bly won a<br />
National Book Award for The Light Around <strong>the</strong> Body, a volume replete<br />
with poems critical of U.S. actions <strong>in</strong> Vietnam; he used his acceptance<br />
speech to encourage draft resistance. Bly’s polemics led James F.<br />
Mersmann to call him “one of <strong>the</strong> most annoy<strong>in</strong>g and most excit<strong>in</strong>g<br />
poets of his time” (113). Von Hallberg falls on <strong>the</strong> “annoy<strong>in</strong>g” side of<br />
<strong>the</strong> critical fence, reserv<strong>in</strong>g his utmost scorn for “The Teeth Mo<strong>the</strong>r<br />
Naked at Last” (1970), which he calls <strong>the</strong> most “ambitious” of<br />
Vietnam-era “period poems” that are marked by an absence of<br />
qualifications and “reasonable language” (American Poetry 142).<br />
Mersmann also op<strong>in</strong>es that Bly’s Vietnam magnum opus has “prose<br />
op<strong>in</strong>ions and not poetic <strong>in</strong>sights,” a fact that has led critics to<br />
“misread” his work (124).<br />
In “Count<strong>in</strong>g Small-Boned Bodies,” Bly’s <strong>political</strong> voice is on full<br />
display. Though not lengthy and bombastic like “The Teeth Mo<strong>the</strong>r”<br />
and not directly confrontational like “Somebody Blew up America,”<br />
<strong>the</strong> poem’s staged, perverse, and disembodied speaker <strong>in</strong>directly<br />
challenges <strong>the</strong> official bureaucratic propaganda of <strong>the</strong> U.S. military.<br />
Walter Kalaidjian calls <strong>the</strong> poem a “burlesque performance” and<br />
suggests that <strong>the</strong> poem employs Bly’s surrealism <strong>in</strong> a “subversive<br />
tone” that “flouts <strong>the</strong> half truths and w<strong>in</strong>dy abstractions of bureaucratic<br />
propaganda.” There is a lot to discuss with regard to this poem,<br />
but <strong>the</strong> best place to beg<strong>in</strong> is with Kalaidjian’s note about its tone.<br />
The poem obviously has a subversive tone and “black humor” (“From<br />
Silence” 198–201), but stopp<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong>re is <strong>in</strong>sufficient. How exactly<br />
does that voice work? First, Bly’s much discussed use of <strong>the</strong> “deep<br />
image,” which William V. Davis po<strong>in</strong>ts out “has never been clearly or<br />
fully def<strong>in</strong>ed” (7), is none<strong>the</strong>less helpful for understand<strong>in</strong>g this poem.<br />
Deep image poems generally employ images that work “below <strong>the</strong><br />
level” of “rational thought”; fur<strong>the</strong>r, <strong>the</strong>se poems generally have a<br />
“fluid, dreamlike construction” and an “<strong>in</strong>tense subjectivity”<br />
(Mills 211–212, 217). In “Count<strong>in</strong>g Small-Boned Bodies,” <strong>the</strong><br />
images are horridly dreamlike and irrational. The speaker imag<strong>in</strong>es <strong>in</strong><br />
a strange progression all of <strong>the</strong> dead Vietnamese bodies first as <strong>the</strong><br />
“size of skulls,” <strong>the</strong>n as small enough to fit “a whole year’s kill” on a<br />
desk, and f<strong>in</strong>ally, as small enough to fit <strong>in</strong>to a “f<strong>in</strong>ger r<strong>in</strong>g” (Selected<br />
Poems 73). The reader must forgo “rational thought” <strong>in</strong> order to<br />
accept Bly’s parodic voice. The <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g smallness of <strong>the</strong> bodies<br />
fluidly distills <strong>the</strong> perversity of daily body counts <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> hundreds or<br />
thousands <strong>in</strong>to <strong>the</strong> size of a “f<strong>in</strong>ger r<strong>in</strong>g.”