Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"Such is the Sickness of Many a Good Thing" by Robert Duncan is a deeply introspective poem that explores themes of love, inhibition, and regret. Through a powerful narrative voice, Duncan delves into the complex emotions associated with the failure to express love when it most matters.

The poem opens with a question that sets a mythical tone: "Was he then Adam of the Burning Way?" This reference to Adam, combined with "the Burning Way," suggests a primordial and intense nature to the subject, possibly equating him with a fundamental human essence or a passionate, almost destructive force. The phrase "hid away in the heat like wrath / conceald in Love’s face," further intensifies this image, presenting love as both a hiding place and a potentially wrathful force, concealed yet powerful.

Duncan introduces the concept of "Eris in Eros," the seed of discord within desire, encapsulating the poem's central conflict—love that contains within it the potential for both connection and destruction. This duality is captured in the metaphor of "key and lock," symbolizing the unlocking of deep, perhaps dark, emotions that the speaker feels unable to articulate.

The inability to speak the "releasing word" conveys a profound sense of emotional paralysis. The speaker's struggle is depicted as a physical stifling of expression: "All the flame in me stopt / against my tongue." This vivid imagery suggests that the speaker's emotions are intense and fiery, yet stifled, unable to be expressed, turning the heart into "a stone, a dumb / unmanageable thing in me."

Duncan skillfully portrays the heart as a barrier rather than a source of expression, "a darkness that stood athwart / his need for the enlightening." The desired words, "I love you," are characterized as having a critical moment for expression—"only this one quick in time, / this one start / when its moment is true." The failure to seize this moment leads to a lasting emotional consequence, marked by the sickness Duncan refers to in the title.

The poem culminates in the poignant reflection that this inability, this "refusing to say I love you," becomes a persistent source of pain and regret. It binds the speaker's past emotions— "the weeping, the yielding, the / yearning to be taken again"—into a "knot, a waiting, a string / so taut it taunts the song." This metaphor suggests that the unresolved emotions continue to strain the speaker's ability to engage with love, to sing freely of it, or to respond to it fully.

In the final lines, Duncan uses darkness not just as a lack of light but as an active force that "draws down the lover’s hand / from its lightness to what’s / underground." This suggests that the unresolved emotions and unexpressed love pull the speaker (and the lover) away from ease and openness (lightness) toward something more burdensome and hidden (underground).

Overall, Duncan's poem is a meditation on the consequences of unexpressed emotions and the complex interplay between love and fear, light and darkness. It captures the universal human experience of regret over lost opportunities to express love, and the lingering impact this has on one's emotional life.

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