Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Richard Wilbur’s "Apology" is a brief but deeply evocative poem that merges the natural world with intimate human emotion. Through its delicate imagery and understated tone, the poem explores the speaker’s feelings of love and reverence for the addressee, as well as a sense of humility and apology for the inadequacy of language to fully express that love. Wilbur’s mastery lies in his ability to interweave the natural and the personal, creating a rich, layered work that resonates with tenderness and introspection.

The poem opens with a striking image: "A word sticks in the wind’s throat." This personification of the wind suggests an interruption or struggle in expression, mirroring the speaker’s own difficulty in articulating their emotions. The wind, often a symbol of movement and communication, is here rendered speechless, embodying the challenge of finding language adequate to convey profound feelings. The second line, "A wind-launch drifts in the swells of rye," reinforces this sense of motion and stillness, as the natural world mirrors the speaker’s internal state. The image of the wind-launch, a fleeting and transient occurrence, suggests the fleeting nature of both language and the moment being described.

The third line, "Sometimes, in broad silence," shifts the focus to a profound quiet, a pause in which "The hanging apples distil their darkness." This image evokes a slow, transformative process, as the apples, emblematic of nature’s richness and ripeness, seem to concentrate their essence into a symbolic "darkness." The darkness here might signify mystery, depth, or the unspoken emotions that linger beneath the surface of the speaker’s words. The natural imagery conveys a sense of stillness and contemplation, setting the stage for the personal reflection that follows.

In the second half of the poem, the addressee is introduced: "You, in a green dress, calling, and with brown hair, / Who come by the field-path now." The description of the person is simple yet vivid, grounding them in the landscape and imbuing them with a sense of vitality and connection to nature. The speaker’s use of the present tense—"come by the field-path now"—creates a sense of immediacy and presence, as if the scene is unfolding before the reader’s eyes.

The speaker’s tone shifts to one of humility and apology in the lines, "Whose name I say / Softly, forgive me love if also I call you / Wind’s word, apple-heart, haven of grasses." Here, the speaker acknowledges their use of metaphors drawn from nature to describe the beloved, asking for forgiveness for conflating their personal love with these symbols. The phrase "Wind’s word" recalls the opening line, tying the speaker’s inability to articulate their feelings to their reliance on natural imagery. "Apple-heart" suggests both the sweetness and depth of the beloved, while "haven of grasses" evokes a sense of safety, refuge, and grounding.

The apology itself is layered with meaning. On one level, the speaker apologizes for using comparisons that may seem inadequate or overly poetic. On another, they may be apologizing for the act of naming and defining the beloved at all, recognizing that no words can fully capture their essence. The metaphors, while beautiful and evocative, are ultimately limited in their ability to convey the complexity of love.

Structurally, the poem’s free verse mirrors the natural flow of the speaker’s thoughts, moving seamlessly between observation and reflection. The lack of a strict rhyme or meter allows the imagery and emotions to take center stage, creating a sense of intimacy and spontaneity. The poem’s brevity enhances its impact, as each word and image carries significant weight, inviting the reader to linger on its nuances.

"Apology" is ultimately a meditation on the tension between language and emotion, between the richness of human love and the limitations of expression. Through its tender imagery and introspective tone, the poem captures the speaker’s deep reverence for the beloved and their awareness of the inadequacy of words to encapsulate that reverence. By intertwining the personal and the natural, Wilbur creates a work that is at once specific and universal, inviting readers to reflect on their own experiences of love, language, and the ineffable beauty of human connection.

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