Modern American Poetry

(^226) James E. Miller, Jr.
which is a reversal
of despair.
(P,p. 78)
The nul, the blank, the descent, confronted in their reality, open up new
spaces for the imagination.
In contrast with Eliot’s wasteland negativism, Williams’s vision might
be called creative despair—that which brings reversal not by sentimental
avoidance but by inhabiting the new spaces revealed. It is very much like the
reversal that comes in Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” where the poet has come
(in section 33) to identify with all the miserable of the world—“Hell and
despair are upon me,” “Agonies are one of my changes of garments.” But as
he reaches the nadir of his despair (“I project my hat, sit shame-faced, and
beg”), he also reaches one of those open spaces, and he experiences reversal
of despair in a new awareness. He cries out “Enough! enough! enough!” as
he remembers the “overstaid fraction,” discovering new spiritual or
imaginative energy which he can share through his poetry.^20
This theme of renewal through despair is echoed throughout Paterson,
as, for example, in Book III, in the midst of the burning of the library—
An old bottle, mauled by the fire
gets a new glaze, the glass warped
to a new distinction, reclaiming the
undefined. A hot stone, reached
by the tide, crackled over by fine
lines, the glaze unspoiled
Annihilation ameliorated:
(P,p. 118)
In the renewal of the bottle (found in its “new space”) there is vital reversal—
the flame that wrapped the glass
deflowered, reflowered there by
the flame: a second flame, surpassing
heat
(P,118)
Deflowered: reflowered. Despair, reversal of despair. Descent: renewal.
Paterson contemplates the example of the reflowered bottle: