Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Simon J. Ortiz’s "The Wisconsin Horse" is a meditation on isolation, despair, and the longing for meaning. As an Acoma Pueblo poet, Ortiz often navigates themes of displacement, survival, and the tension between personal struggle and larger historical forces. In this poem, he juxtaposes the speaker’s internal turmoil with the silent endurance of a horse confined within a fence, using the contrast to explore existential emptiness and the search for something beyond it. The poem unfolds in a fragmented, introspective manner, moving between memory, present pain, and a distant yet persistent hope.

The poem begins with an image of intoxication and exhaustion: "It is late at night, lying drunk on the floor, hearing a church bell across the street, remembering that Wisconsin Horse this Spring." The disjointed phrasing mirrors the speaker’s fragmented state of mind. The contrast between the physical reality—drunkenness, lying on the floor—and the external presence of the church bell establishes a tension between inner turmoil and external calls for salvation or structure. The recollection of "that Wisconsin Horse this Spring" disrupts the immediate moment, suggesting that this memory holds significance, even if it is not yet fully articulated.

"One step at a time to return." This brief statement suggests an effort at recovery or movement toward something, though it remains ambiguous whether the return is to sobriety, clarity, or a broader sense of self. The idea of movement is immediately followed by an image of stillness: "The horse across the road stands within a fence, silent in the hot afternoon." The juxtaposition emphasizes the speaker’s sense of entrapment—while the horse is physically confined, the speaker is emotionally and spiritually restrained. The horse, despite its silence, becomes a symbol of endurance, its quiet presence resonating throughout the poem.

The next sequence introduces America’s ceaseless activity: "A mile north is some construction. / I tell the horse, / 'That’s America building something.'” The phrasing is wry, as though the speaker is commenting on the relentless, unquestioned progress of American expansion. The horse’s silence in response underscores a contrast between human industriousness and the natural world’s unspoken persistence. The speaker assigns no overt judgment to the construction, but the horse’s quiet detachment suggests that such building is inconsequential to something deeper—perhaps to those, like the horse and the speaker, who find themselves caught on the margins of this progress.

Ortiz then shifts inward again: "The bell clamors / against the insides of my skull. / It has nothing to do with sound that can comfort." The bell, traditionally associated with churches and community gatherings, is not a source of solace here. Instead, it becomes oppressive, its sound a physical force within the speaker’s mind. The phrase "The clamor wants to escape its barriers. / I want it to escape." suggests that both the bell and the speaker are confined—one by the limitations of sound, the other by personal despair. The desire for release is palpable, yet undefined.

The next section moves toward self-examination: "I have no defenses. I should be an eager Christian hungry for salvation, / or at the very least accept smugness bound tightly in plastic." The expectation of religious faith as a source of redemption is acknowledged but rejected. The alternative—“smugness bound tightly in plastic”—suggests consumerism, materialism, or shallow complacency as another means of filling emptiness. The speaker, however, can accept neither. This rejection of easy answers emphasizes the depth of their existential crisis.

Ortiz then articulates a stark self-awareness: "Yet, at this single point in my life, I know only a few bare things: the floor, the walls around me, that bell across the street, / that despair is a miserable excuse for emptiness." The listing of physical surroundings reinforces a sense of confinement, but the phrase "despair is a miserable excuse for emptiness" marks a turning point. The speaker acknowledges that despair is not an end in itself—it is insufficient as a justification for inaction or withdrawal. There is an implicit recognition that something must fill the void, that despair alone is not enough.

This realization builds toward an assertion: "that I should echo louder that call for salvation which at this point I know is a need to fill the hollows and pockets of my body." The speaker reinterprets the idea of salvation—not as religious doctrine but as a means of filling the emptiness within. The need for meaning is physical, embodied, rather than abstract or theological.

The poem’s final movement brings the focus back to the Wisconsin Horse: "But now, and not too soon, / in, this dark night, having gotten up to write, I make this offering:" The act of writing becomes a means of survival, an effort to break through silence and despair. The speaker acknowledges that the Wisconsin Horse, standing in the heat of the afternoon, is more than just an incidental memory—it is a reflection of endurance in the face of confinement.

The final lines ask: "I wonder now if the horse still stands silent in the dark night, dreamless and stifled, having no recourses left except to hope his silence will soon go away and the meaningfulness enter." The speaker identifies with the horse’s condition—silent, trapped, without clear options. The phrase “having no recourses left except to hope” suggests that hope itself, however faint, is the only available path. The desire for "the meaningfulness [to] enter" acknowledges that meaning is not inherent but something that must be sought, something that may come, if only silence can be broken.

Ortiz’s free verse style enhances the fluid, introspective quality of the poem. The lack of punctuation in key moments creates an organic, stream-of-consciousness effect, reflecting the speaker’s restless thoughts. The use of repetition—both in imagery (the horse, the bell) and in themes (silence, entrapment, the search for meaning)—reinforces the cyclical nature of the speaker’s struggle. The movement between memory, present reality, and existential contemplation mirrors the fragmented way in which the mind processes despair and hope.

"The Wisconsin Horse" is ultimately a poem about wrestling with emptiness, about confronting the weight of existence without easy resolutions. Ortiz presents a speaker who is searching—not for religious salvation, not for material comfort, but for something more elusive: a reason to persist, a way to make silence give way to meaning. The horse, standing motionless yet ever-present, serves as both a mirror and a guide, embodying endurance even in uncertainty. In writing, in offering this reflection, the speaker takes a step toward filling the hollows within, toward transforming silence into something that might, finally, matter.

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