Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Eleanor Wilner's poem "Unstrung" is a masterful exploration of the fragility and transience of art and life, juxtaposed against the permanence and artificiality of human creations. The poem opens with a reference to W.B. Yeats' famous lines from "Sailing to Byzantium," setting a contemplative tone about the nature of artistic expression and its place in human consciousness.

The imagery in "Unstrung" is rich and evocative, conjuring a jewelled tapestry where rubies hang as fruit, pearls form the eyes of a unicorn, and the moon is depicted as a silver pomegranate. These luxurious and meticulously crafted elements represent the height of human artistic achievement, a tapestry so detailed and vivid that it seems almost alive. Yet, this artificial perfection contrasts starkly with the underlying theme of decay and the inevitability of change.

The poem shifts focus to the intricate and seemingly eternal beauty of the lady in brocade and lace, her appearance divided by a satin band, symbolizing the human desire to compartmentalize and control beauty and time. However, this artificial division hints at an inherent fragility, as if she could easily be unraveled or broken apart.

Wilner then introduces a toy dog with a "shameless red" tongue, suggesting life and vitality dyed permanently into the thread. This detail, like the jeweled tapestry, speaks to the human effort to capture and preserve life within the confines of art, to create something that defies death. Yet, the poem subtly critiques this effort by showing how life, once captured, becomes static and loses its natural essence.

The tension between life and art culminates in the image of the little bird with a glittering eye, which "tried its beak on its own gold coat that tied it to the branch." This act of self-destruction, tearing itself free from its golden bindings, symbolizes a rejection of the artificial constraints imposed by human artistry. The bird, in its quest for freedom, represents the pure, uncontainable essence of life, fragile yet resilient. Its call, described as "a drop of rain sliding down a single silver wire," emphasizes its delicate existence, a fleeting sound in a world of permanence.

As the bird escapes into the night, "a stroke or two of chalk wiped off a slate," the poem underscores the impermanence of life and the ephemeral nature of true freedom. The striking of the clock and the image of the church spire, a "black splinter in the dead white thumb of moon," reinforce the theme of time's relentless passage and the stark contrast between the living world and the static world of human creation.

In the final stanza, the poem takes a darker turn with the mouse foraging for its young, only to be attacked by a bat. This encounter between predator and prey, both creatures of the night, serves as a grim reminder of the cycle of life and death that persists beyond human attempts to capture and preserve beauty. The bat, "who cannot see," represents the blind forces of nature that operate independently of human perception and control.

"Unstrung" ultimately presents a meditation on the limitations of art in the face of nature's relentless processes. While human creations can capture and preserve moments of beauty, they remain bound by their artificiality and inability to truly encapsulate the dynamic essence of life. Wilner's poem calls into question the very nature of artistic endeavor, suggesting that the pursuit of permanence through art may, paradoxically, render it lifeless and disconnected from the true vitality it seeks to immortalize.

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