PoemoftheWeek

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The Unnamable

I agree with almost all of what you say and this isn’t nitpicking for the sake of it but when you say that “nothing has changed”, I would argue that, horribly, it has. Which one of the deaths in the poem strikes people as the worst and why?

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shanna

PL, in her first or second post about this poem, said somewhere that nothing's changed, in all these years. But I think the poet's point is that it has changed. Its grown worse.

---

Since this came up twice I thought I'd respond (that is unless Virg's suggestion that you're one and the same sticks :D ). You're both right of course. In the context of the poem things have gotten worse. Maybe it would have occured to me to say so if I hadn't been reading Titus Andronicus for class at the time (it's been a cheery week of reading), but somehow in that context it seemed as though human nature itself hadn't changed as much as the efficiency of their methods. But I digress. You're absolutely right in the context of this poem, and I ought to have said as much. I think KTD is right in pointing to the lack of social and religious recognition as the key factor in setting up the second scene as even more horrific. I think there's also something more terrifying about the fact that it's psychologically and spiritually devastating. You always imagine that your comfort in such a situation would be that they can harm the body but never your inner core. In the Nazi situation the victims are stripped of everything.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

Virg--I think in your response to Shanna you've hit on what makes the "trite" phrases of this poem work. What I tried to argue earlier (at too long length?) was that it is not the individual phrase, but the context of the phrase that makes it "trite." In this poem these phrases are being individualized. They are brought to bear in the context of two situations where they represent the sorts of "core values" you describe. They are reinvested with the individuality and meaning that makes them significant rather than maudlin.

---

Yes, I understood that when you made your argument before. However, I still think it's a cop-out on the poet's part to resort to trite phrases. The trite phrases may add this layer to the poem that you point out, but it's still not poetry, at least those phrases. He could have made the same point with original lines.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

unless Virg's suggestion that you're one and the same sticks :D

---

Don’t you start as well! Shanna is clever but, well…

While I’m here – you made an outrageous claim earlier that everyone had assumed there was more than one Nazi – I didn’t and I demand an apology. Also, a Colobus monkey is NOT a chimp. Chimps are apes – monkeys aren’t, although both are Primates. You should know that as an expert in Renaissance Literature. Why does everyone misquote me?

(Do I really need to use a smiley?)

Quote:

---

He could have made the same point with original lines.

---

He could not have made the same point with original lines. Original lines would not have resonated within the reader in the same way, as things that we've heard over and over again. Using the title of a well known hymn is going to have a much different effect on someone who's familiar with that hymn than anything the poet could have come up with.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The Unnamable

Don’t you start as well! Shanna is clever but, well…

While I’m here – you made an outrageous claim earlier that everyone had assumed there was more than one Nazi – I didn’t and I demand an apology.

---

Alas! I had no idea I'd fallen into the trap of generalization! Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! My apologies, since I obviously meant everyone except The Unnamable One.

Quote:

---

Also, a Colobus monkey is NOT a chimp. Chimps are apes – monkeys aren’t, although both are Primates.

---

And alas once more! Please pardon my innacuracy. I am but a humble mortal primate myself.

Quote:

---

You should know that as an expert in Renaissance Literature. Why does everyone misquote me?

---

Because it's such fun?

Quote:

---

(Do I really need to use a smiley?)

---

No more than I do I hope.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The Unnamable

To which question is ‘yes’ a reply?

---

Quote:

---

ktd222, do I have this right? In this poem Hecht doesn’t care about the Nazi soldier? The fact that he has portrayed him as behaving with almost incomprehensible, unfathomable cruelty should not be taken as any indication that, in this particular poem (which Hecht has dedicated to Hannah Arendt), he is at all concerned with his behaviour? Is the soldier in any way responsible for his actions? Is he merely a victim of Nazi ideology, just like the people he buries alive or shoots?

---

Aren't all of your questions here concerning the Nazi soldier?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love

He could not have made the same point with original lines. Original lines would not have resonated within the reader in the same way, as things that we've heard over and over again. Using the title of a well known hymn is going to have a much different effect on someone who's familiar with that hymn than anything the poet could have come up with.

---

I said I could have accepted "Kindly Light" if it was the only melodramatic phrase. But what about : "drained away their souls", "quivering chin", "pityful dignity"?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The Unnamable

Don’t you start as well! Shanna is clever but, well…

---

BUT WELL WHAT, EXACTLY..?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xamonas Chegwe

I can't say I like this poem. But I doubt its purpose is to be liked.

---

At first I had the same reaction. I did not like this. I also found myself saying things like - "well, it gives a reaction, but is it really poetry? It seems like more like prose. And I am not sure if I think it is good". Now, don´t hit me. I have given it careful thought and I think that it was a reaction to the documentary style, but also something caused by the emotions of the poem.
Hecht writes about things that are repulsive, and I think that my first response was a reaction to that. I was repulsed, and I guess that is what he wanted.

We all like to believe in a kindly light, or some last dignity. In this poem as PL wrote there is none.

If you have patience I will tell you an anecdote. It is related to the poem.
I was traveling in Germany, and came across a small town. It was fit for a postcard. They made good wine there and we had to much before deciding to go and try to visit the castle on the hill. The castle was not for visitors, but on the way half hidden was a small grave yard. The sign said that this was a resting place all all who died during the second world war in this small town. Jews, soldiers, prisoners of war, children and adults. Side by side. There was a poem on the wall. It was about brothers torn from brothers, and how heaven would at last "open the heart of peace". And it seemed like a closure at the time. A kind comfort, while looking at the lush trees and the lovely valley. And Hecht shows it to be a lie. There is no kindly light in this death. Just fear that breaks people as easily as bullets. We cry for light and get fire that turns our bones to ashes. And then we are gone, and the heaven does not open.

"No prayers or incense rose up in those hours
Which grew to be years, and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot."

Anyhow, when Hecht states 'much casual death had drained away their souls,' I don't think that the draining away of their souls is only as a result of the ritual being performed by the Nazi guard without a religious basis on his part, but also the opportunity given to the victim to speak to his god.
In the first ritual the victim is permitted this 'pitiful dignity':And such as were by made prayers in the name of Christ,/That shall judge all men, for his soul's tranquility.
While in the latter ritual the opportunity for prayer is not even given: No prayers or incense rose up in those hours

And I think this gets to the matter of the poem: that prayers are in some way needed to acknowledge to Christ that one believes in Him; therefore, Christ will judge all men's fate based on the victim's soul's tranquility.

So the last paragraph goes as follows:
No prayers or incense rose up in those hours
Which grew to be years, and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.

The prayer or incense is what rises up to speak with God. Just as in the beginning paragraph when Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt composed 'these moving verses,' the verses is itself an acknowledgement of Christ, as well what moves up and speaks directly with Christ for you.
There is movement in this poem!
And in the end I think that part of the victim, the 'acknowledging part', is what has drained away.
And in the same way, this is why the 'Ghosts from the ovens' at the end are mute. Because the opportunity for acknowledgment of Christ in life(aloud) is lost by not standing behind one's faith and speaking up.
Therefore you have this cycle at the end of the poem where the Ghost continually seem to try to rise, but instead sift down through crisp air, 'and settle upon his eyes in a black soot.' The ghosts themselves have, in a way, lost the 'light', and now is described as 'black soot'; which incidently is what is covering the Polish eye from seeing light.

PS: tell me where I'm rambling and I will try to clear up my thoughts.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The Unnamable

If you are still there, kilted exile, the Colobus monkey from Glasgow was not in any way meant as a slur on your good self. :D

---

Indeed not after all there are few monkeys in glasgow, however, there are many uneducated apes but most of them prefer primitive weapons such as hammers and sharpened golf clubs to the confusing gun with all its moving parts.

(just as a point of reference, in glasgow terminology I would be refered to as a "hun", strange eh?)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Virgil

I said I could have accepted "Kindly Light" if it was the only melodramatic phrase. But what about : "drained away their souls", "quivering chin", "pityful dignity"?

---

In one of my earlier posts I addressed how I thought at least one of these lines, the "quivering chin," worked as an example of a purposeful rejection of more elevated language in this poem. It's sometimes not really a matter of what phrases a poet is using as much as the way he/she is employing them, and I think that what others have been referring to as "documentary style" diction works well towards creating the effect this poet is striving toward. I simply don't feel that they're melodramatic lines and you do. I suppose we may just have to leave it at that. I'd be interested in hearing what you liked about this poem though, since you said earlier that there were some things you thought good.

Ktd222,
Why is it that the Jews do not hesitate in burying the Pole alive even after he has taken a stance by refusing to do the same with them? The answer Hecht provides is that “much casual death had drained away their souls”, which I take to mean that they are so desensitised by the treatment they have previously received as members of a race that has been systematically annihilated, so brutalised that they have no core values of decency left. They are utterly broken. The only thing that I see in this poem that could be described as trite is the offering of religious condolence.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by “ktd222”

The prayer or incense is what rises up to speak with God. Just as in the beginning paragraph when Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt composed 'these moving verses,' the verses is itself an acknowledgement of Christ, as well what moves up and speaks directly with Christ for you.
There is movement in this poem!

---

I have no idea what you mean here. First of all, Heinrich Blucher and Hannah Arendt did not compose any verses (at least not in this poem – I have no idea if they wrote limericks to each other in private). They are two people to whom Hecht has dedicated his poem. Do you actually read what people post? I provided information about them in #946. They are not participants in the poem, if that is what the garbled comments above are actually saying. Earlier you said, “If Hecht did not say the German soldier was holding the Luger then how are you suppose (sic) to know?” and then added, “Have you heard of the word 'assumption' and the phrase 'use what your (sic) given'?” Correct me if I am wrong but you appear to be saying that we should only focus on what is provided in the poem. Yet now you have no qualms about making a statement like “the Ghost (sic) continually seem to try to rise”. Where is the evidence for this? What does it mean, anyway? Are you suggesting in some way that Hecht’s purpose in this poem is to show us the true way to God and offer us some kind of religious hope? There is no hope offered. All light has been extinguished, which is why I said that I found the poem unanswerable.

Your comments lead me to believe that you have read the critics in the links I posted above. May I suggest you read them again but this time make understanding them your focus, rather than simply trying to ransack them for an argument.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The Unnamable

Ktd222Your comments lead me to believe that you have read the critics in the links I posted above. May I suggest you read them again but this time make understanding them your focus, rather than simply trying to ransack them for an argument.

---

I have read none of the sort. I've contributed to a lot of poems in this thread and not only to the ones analyzed by the site you suggest-which makes me think your the one who goes on the internet and finds an answer that matches yours before you give people the post to the site.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The Unnamable

Ktd222,
Why is it that the Jews do not hesitate in burying the Pole alive even after he has taken a stance by refusing to do the same with them? The answer Hecht provides is that “much casual death had drained away their souls”, which I take to mean that they are so desensitised by the treatment they have previously received as members of a race that has been systematically annihilated, so brutalised that they have no core values of decency left. They are utterly broken. The only thing that I see in this poem that could be described as trite is the offering of religious condolence.

---

Geez, look who is analyzing the poem like it's a history report.