Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Donald Revell’s "My Trip; For Robert Creeley" is a thoughtful, layered reflection on travel, poetry, memory, and the fleeting nature of experience. Written as an homage to Robert Creeley, the poem examines the intimate ways in which poetry intersects with everyday life, blurring the lines between personal history, geographical displacement, and the transformative potential of art. Through a series of seemingly ordinary scenes, Revell explores the power of poetry to evoke questions about identity, place, and the concept of “home,” presenting these themes through both sensory details and philosophical musings.

The poem opens with a simple, evocative image: "I am looking at a smallpox vaccination scar / In a war movie on the arm / Of a young actor." This scene draws the reader’s attention to a mark of survival, as the smallpox scar symbolizes both resilience and vulnerability. The fact that this scar appears on a young actor in a war movie sets a tone of nostalgia and mortality. Revell contrasts the actor’s depiction of heroism in a fictionalized version of WWII Normandy with the reality that the "river’s in California, / And the actor is dead now." This juxtaposition of fiction and reality, life and death, serves as a reminder of how time alters perception and how memories become layered with history, imagination, and distance.

As the speaker reflects on his travel experiences, he notes, "This is the first of many hotels this trip, / And I find myself preferring wars / To smut on the networks." The mention of hotels signals a transient lifestyle, a detachment from any fixed “home,” and the preference for watching “wars” in movies over modern media reflects a yearning for depth and meaning rather than superficiality. The speaker’s choice to read "The Pisan Cantos" instead of the novel in his bag reinforces his desire for introspection and intellectual nourishment. The Cantos, known for their complexity and historical allusions, mirror the speaker’s quest for something enduring, resonant, and profound. This search leads him to a fundamental question: "Does anything remain of home at home?" This line encapsulates the poem’s exploration of belonging, suggesting that “home” may be more than a physical place; it is a feeling or memory that may not always align with its current reality.

Revell’s next day unfolds with quiet satisfaction: "A small museum really perfect / And a good meal in the middle of it." This sequence of activities reflects the speaker’s appreciation for simplicity and discovery in his travel routine. Observing small, specific moments—"a donkey on a vase / Biting the arm of a young girl" and "a silver fish head glistens beside a bottlecap"—the speaker finds beauty and significance in these details. The image of the donkey, captured in the permanence of a vase, contrasts with the impermanence of the fish head and bottle cap left on the museum steps, yet both images symbolize something lasting in memory.

"The work of poetry is trust," the speaker muses, introducing the idea that poetry relies on an intrinsic faith in language to convey truth. Trusting poetry, he argues, enables an effortless engagement with the world, a surrender to what one sees and hears. His surroundings come alive: "Numberless good things" fill his view, and "plenty of words / Offered for nothing over the traffic noise / As sharp as sparrows." Here, Revell celebrates the incidental beauty of overheard words, conversations that, though seemingly mundane, carry resonance and depth. The sharpness of sparrows suggests vitality, a keenness that stands out even amid the urban noise.

As the poem continues, the speaker describes a growing sense of transformation: "A day and a day, more rivers crossing me. / It really feels that way, I mean / I have changed places with geography, / And rivers and towns pass over me." This reversal, in which the speaker feels geography moving through him rather than himself moving through geography, illustrates a profound shift in perception. The “rivers” are like memories or experiences flowing through his consciousness, each with scars and histories, each forming connections with him. This inversion signifies a surrender to experience, where the individual becomes a passive recipient of place, time, and memory.

The speaker’s reflections on poetry continue with a description of how it can “gleam” or “show its teeth,” capturing the spontaneous and sometimes fierce nature of poetic insight. The desire to "live underneath the animals" or "be a bottlecap" suggests a longing for simplicity, to become part of the overlooked, enduring fabric of the world. By imagining himself as a bottlecap—a common, seemingly trivial object—the speaker contemplates his own place in the grand scheme of things, recognizing that even simple objects are part of the landscape he cherishes.

In the poem’s closing scene, the speaker stops for breakfast with his teacher, "now my friend," marking a meaningful transition from student to equal. This moment of camaraderie is both humble and deeply intimate, epitomized by the simplicity of shared hotcakes and berries. Their connection is interrupted, yet poignantly enhanced, by a nearby conversation: "One policeman saying to another…‘Do you know this word regret, Eddie? / What does it mean?’" This question on regret resonates with the speaker’s own contemplations, infusing the seemingly mundane conversation with philosophical weight. The policeman’s query becomes a meditation on language itself, as if asking what regret means in a literal sense and what it means to live with it.

The poem ends with a line that encapsulates the speaker’s journey: "Catching a glimpse of eternity, even a poor one, says it all." This statement reflects a fleeting, partial understanding of something vast and ungraspable, much like his earlier sense of identity and place. The “poor” glimpse is enough; even a brief insight into eternity or meaning suffices in the context of life’s ephemeral beauty and complexity. The speaker finds satisfaction in these small glimpses, suggesting that the value of life lies not in definitive answers but in the subtle, passing moments of understanding.

Overall, "My Trip; For Robert Creeley" is a nuanced exploration of memory, place, and the power of poetry to frame experience. Through evocative imagery and fragmented observations, Revell illustrates the complexity of being “at home” in a transient life, suggesting that poetry itself becomes a “home” through its ability to hold fragments of experience, memory, and emotion. The poem reflects the influence of Creeley’s minimalist style, where Revell’s search for meaning lies in the details, and where identity is found not in a singular destination but in the quiet accumulation of images, words, and fleeting insights. In the end, "My Trip" captures the beauty of transient moments, showing how poetry helps make sense of an ever-changing, interconnected world.

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