554 The American Century: Literature since 1945illustrates two ways in which the poet, as he grew older, continued to change and
grow. One way involved an intensified interest in the people around him. Having
established a true sense of himself in poems like “Unfold! Unfold!,” Roethke turned
outward to affirm his relationship with others: by adopting their voice and vision
for a while, perhaps, as in “Meditations” or “The Dying Man,” by celebrating the
“slow world” of erotic fulfillment where the lovers “breathe in unison,” or by a
gently particularistic portrait of an individual – his father, it might be, “Who lived
above a potting shed for years,” or “a woman, lovely in her bones.” The other way
in which Roethke moved was toward a creative analysis of ultimate questions
about God and Eternity – above all, about “Death’s possibilities” and their
significance for the living. “Old men should be explorers?” Roethke asked, echoing
Eliot, “ / I’ll be an Indian”; and he lived up to this promise in poems that sing of
any person, like himself, who “beats his wings / Against the immense immeasurable
emptiness of things.” As the old woman meditates, she considers the imminence
of her death (“What’s left is light as seed”), and the disappointments of her past
(“I have gone into the waste lonely places / Behind the eye”), but she remembers
positive moments as well, when she achieved growth by realizing a harmonious
relationship with all that is. Such moments more than make up for others, she
believes: they are blessed with a special perfection of their own, a sense of ecstasy
that no deity can ever supply. “In such times,” she says, “lacking a god / I am still
happy.” It seems appropriate that even this poem, the product of “an old crone’s
knowing,” should end on a note of affirmation and possibility. For Roethke, as the
work gathered in his Collected Poems (1966) shows, life was a continual wayfaring,
an expedition into the grounds of being that offered joy or wonder as a reward. It
was a process of constant beginnings, “many arrivals,” whereby, the poet felt – to
quote from one of his most famous pieces, “The Waking” – “I learn by going where
I have to go.”Confessional poetry
“Alas, I can only tell my own story.” The words could be those of many American
poets; in fact they were written by Robert Lowell (1911–1977), and could be said to
sum up his work. Despite the touch of regretfulness noticeable in this remark, Lowell
did seriously believe that his story needed to be told; and for this his good friend
Elizabeth Bishop envied him. “I feel that I could write in as much detail about my
uncle Artie, say,” she wrote to Lowell, “ – but what would be the significance? Nothing
at all ... whereas all you have to do is put down the names!” For Bishop, the source
of this good fortune lay in the sheer splendor of Lowell’s background, the fact that
he was descended from two distinguished New England families. But two other
things were as important: Lowell’s characteristically American tendency to see him-
self as a representative of his culture, and his willingness, or determination, to
assume the role of scapegoat – to challenge and confront (or say “No, in thunder” as
Herman Melville put it) and to expose himself, for the purposes of revelation and
discovery, to the major pressures of his times.GGray_c05.indd 554ray_c 05 .indd 554 8 8/1/2011 7:31:31 PM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 31 : 31 PM