conceive the importance of both the sun and the
clouds in the rich fertilization of the earth, and
Toomer generates sensual imagery to support
our conception....
Dynamic in its fusion of color, warmth,
motion, and sensuality, this second fragment
concludes with a dash that indicates a lengthy
pause. This pause is necessary, for here, as in all
cubist art, the point of view changes. Through
the first and second fragments, we stand on earth
peering upward into the sun surrounded by
clouds. Now, from space, we peer downward at
the earth through an opening in those clouds.
From no other position could we perceive the
third fragment:
And the sweet earth flying from the thunder.
Only from such a remote distance can we be
objective enough to see the flattened plane of
earth, in its cyclical motion about the sun, pass
across our opening and appear to fly from the
thunder of the clouds....
Toomer cubistically smatters the mind with
three fragments, yet there emerges a complexity
of superimposed planar images that portray
abundant activity in one moment’s time, the
ending of a storm. Absence of sequential narra-
tive gives proof that we are not to perceive the
abundant activity chronologically, but syn-
chronically. In fact, as any cubist might do, we
can rearrange the lines or the fragments without
effectively changing our intuitive perception.
For example:
Full-lipped flowers
Bleeding rain
Bitten by the sun
Dripping rain like golden honey—
Thunder blossoms gorgeously above our
heads,
Rumbling in the wind,
Great, hollow, bell-like flowers,
Stretching clappers to strike our ears.
And the sweet earth flying from the thunder.
No matter what the order of the images on
the page, we still experience, on the literal level,
the aesthetic effect described above. And, on the
symbolic level, we witness Black slaves, dark
clouds pierced by the sun on their backs, as
they spill their lifeblood and tears to fertilize
the soil of the South. We witness, also, as the
sweet earth flies from the thunder, that Black
Americans reject their slave heritage and that
white Americans reject their Black brothers.
Although one sees and hears and feels clear
images in both ‘‘Nullo’’ and ‘‘Storm Ending,’’
there is no indication of metaphor. Thus, critics
such as Bernard W. Bell and Amritjit Singh, who
claim that Toomer embraces imagism, are mis-
taken, for in an imagist poem the image is meta-
phor. Witness the image as metaphor in these
two imagist poems, ‘‘In a Station of the Metro’’
and ‘‘Alba,’’ by Ezra Pound:
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
...
As cool as the pale wet leaves of lily-of-the-
valley
She lay beside me in the dawn.
The metaphor in each poem by Pound is
obvious. But no such metaphors exist in Toomer’s
‘‘Nullo’’ or ‘‘Storm Ending,’’ because Toomer’s
works are cubistic rather than imagistic. Toomer
as a cubist goes beyond the imagist. In his work
the crystal-clear image is not metaphor; the image
is object or subject.
Toomer’s use of the image as object rather
than metaphor shows that Toomer upholds the
integrity of the subject. Beyond that, Toomer
adheres to all of the basic cubist aesthetic con-
cerns. He dissociates the elements of his subject
and creates images for each fragment of that
subject. He abandons sequential movement in
chronological time and adopts non-sequential
movement in synchronic time by smattering the
mind with numerous images—equal in value to
each other and to the whole—that must be per-
ceived instantaneously. By compressing so many
images into one moment, he forces the reader to
perceive the images simultaneously. This forces
the reader to respond with intuitive perception
of the conceptual compound image of the sub-
ject in its totality and in its essence. And while
Toomer follows this process, he plays with cate-
gories of time, types of motion, and levels of
space. Toomer is a master of literary cubism.
Source:Ann Marie Bush and Louis D. Mitchell, ‘‘Jean
Toomer: A Cubist Poet,’’ inBlack American Literature
Forum, Vol. 17, No. 3, Fall 1983, pp. 106–108.Michael Krasny
In the following essay, Krasny describes the vari-
ous arcs inCanethat contribute to the circular
thematic structure of the volume.
In the fall of 1922 Toomer published the
poems ‘‘Storm Ending,’’ ‘‘Georgia Dusk,’’ ‘‘Har-
vest Song,’’ and ‘‘Song of the Son,’’ as well as theStorm Ending