Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Eleanor Wilner's poem "Tracking" takes the reader on a profound journey into the depths of the ocean, where the boundaries between reality and imagination blur. The poem is addressed to Carolyn and starts with an acknowledgment of the ocean's layers—from the surface blue and green to the black waters where light has never reached. This progression sets the stage for an exploration of the mysterious and the unseen.

The poem's opening lines describe the ocean's mezzanine, a middle layer that serves as a transition between the known and the unknown. Here, submarines navigate using sonar, relying on sound rather than sight as light fades. This reference to submarines evokes a sense of exploration and discovery, highlighting the human quest to understand and chart the unknown.

In the darkness of the ocean's depths, Wilner introduces the giant Alba, an elusive creature that exists on the edge of possibility. Described as an "ellipsis of the deep," the Alba is an enormous, shadowy presence that is only visible on sonar screens. The creature's existence is paradoxical, as it lives in conditions that should be uninhabitable. This paradox underscores the poem's theme of the transitive and the ambiguous, suggesting that some phenomena exist beyond our conventional understanding.

Wilner's imagery conjures a surreal underwater world reminiscent of a sunken city, where "finned giants" navigate the "long, unlighted streets" of drowned tenements. This vision blends the natural and the urban, creating a fantastical landscape where coral palings and seaweed-covered kiosks replace familiar urban structures. The falling ships that "spun like pearls in honey" add to the dreamlike quality of the scene, emphasizing the fluidity and strangeness of this underwater realm.

The poem's central image, the giant Alba, becomes a symbol of the unknowable and the sublime. It swims through the depths, consuming darkness "like krill" until it has swallowed all but its own glowing self. This act of ingestion can be interpreted as a metaphor for the human desire to understand and internalize the unknown. The Alba's transformation from a creature of the deep to a being of light reflects the transition from mystery to revelation.

In the poem's closing lines, the Alba sheds its material form and rises to the surface to witness the dawn. This ascent symbolizes a return to the familiar and the visible, but also a kind of rebirth. The creature's journey from the depths to the light mirrors the human pursuit of knowledge and the cyclical nature of discovery. The "ravishing until" suggests a moment of fulfillment and enlightenment, a temporary but profound encounter with the sublime.

Wilner's "Tracking" is a meditation on the interplay between the known and the unknown, the visible and the invisible. Through vivid and evocative imagery, the poem explores the depths of the ocean as a metaphor for the mysteries of existence. The giant Alba serves as a symbol of the elusive and the transcendent, inviting readers to contemplate the limits of perception and the nature of discovery. In this journey through darkness and light, Wilner captures the awe and wonder that accompany the human quest for understanding.

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