Wednesday, February 17, 2010

American Ashbery

I feel like I am lacking interpretive clues to make better sense of this poem, but here, nevertheless, are some thoughts:

- who are ‘they?’ does ‘solving’ this help give the poem meaning?

- in line 2 I hear a reference to Whitman and his most famous poem

- the land of milk and honey was originally Canaan, the ‘promised land’ in the Bible, but that imagery has also been used of America. Unfortunately, this honey actually burns the throat.

- The reference in line 11 to the man being 30 years old has echoes of Jesus, who began his ministry at around that age.

- I cannot help but hear Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness with the reference to ‘the horror’ in line 24. Is America the nation with a darkened heart that will destroy your soul? Is it the white witch? And is it, no matter the horror, still our guiding light? Are we lost without America (line 25)?

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