Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Kenneth Patchen’s "The Lute in the Attic" is a dense, haunting meditation on memory, guilt, and the inescapable weight of the past. The poem reads like a fragmented letter or a spectral monologue, calling out to William Brewster Hollins, a figure who seems both deeply personal and symbolic. Through a series of surreal, disjointed images, Patchen weaves together a narrative of loss, decay, and unspoken tragedy, blending the mundane with the macabre. The poem is saturated with a sense of something terrible that has occurred—perhaps a crime, perhaps a betrayal—and the speaker is trapped in its aftermath, haunted by memories that refuse to fade.

The poem begins with an urgent, repetitive invocation: "As this comes in / Call you / I call you." This triple repetition of the call establishes an atmosphere of desperation, as if the speaker is trying to bridge an impossible distance—whether temporal, emotional, or even between life and death. The phrase "As this comes in" suggests a message arriving, but it’s unclear whether it’s a letter, a confession, or something more metaphysical, like the arrival of a memory or a reckoning.

Patchen quickly grounds the poem in a specific setting, "The apples are red again in Chandler's Valley / redder for what happened there." The apples, a symbol of natural cycles and, in many traditions, of knowledge or temptation, are described as "redder for what happened there," immediately linking the natural world to a past event marked by violence or shame. The repetition of "red" connects this seemingly idyllic image to blood, suggesting that whatever occurred in Chandler’s Valley has left a lasting, visible mark on the landscape.

The introduction of the ducks—"the ducks move like flocculent clocks round and round"—adds to the surreal, unsettling atmosphere. The description of their movement as "flocculent clocks" evokes both softness and the relentless passage of time, as if their circular motion is a perpetual reminder of the past. The phrase "The seven fat ducks whose mouths were wet crimson once" ties back to the earlier reference to the red apples, hinting at a violent event—perhaps a murder or an accident—that the speaker cannot forget. The number seven, often symbolically significant, lends a ritualistic or fateful air to the scene, as if these ducks are not merely animals but embodiments of a lingering curse or guilt.

The speaker’s repeated invocation of "O William Brewster Hollins / I call you back!" reinforces the sense that this poem is a plea, a desperate attempt to summon someone from the past—possibly from beyond the grave. William is asked to "Come you and stand here / By the fog-blunted house that is silent now." The house, shrouded in fog and silence, becomes a symbol of abandonment and decay, a physical representation of the emotional desolation that pervades the poem.

The speaker delves into personal, almost gossipy details, mentioning William’s father and Isalina, a woman whose beauty has faded, though "her eyes still hold their light, people say." The speaker, however, remembers her differently: "For myself, to be truthful, her eyes have changed. / They are not at all as they were then." This shift suggests that the speaker witnessed something significant—perhaps something that altered their perception of Isalina forever. The mention of William and Isalina "lying naked together under the apple trees" hints at a sexual transgression, one that may have been innocent in the moment but is now colored by guilt and regret.

The poem takes a darker turn when describing William’s father, who has "come to love rather fearful things." His attachment to "spider-ladies" and his screams when someone tries to clean around him suggest a descent into madness, perhaps as a result of the same event that haunts the speaker. The town whispers that "it would be better if he died," indicating that his madness has become a burden to those around him, a living reminder of a shared, unspoken trauma.

Patchen introduces more characters, like Sam Hanner, who "drowned two summers ago," and Old Krairly, who wanted to carve a mocking epitaph on Sam’s gravestone. The suggestion that "Sam watched you do it"—presumably referring to some unspeakable act—implies that William was involved in a crime or a tragic event that led to Sam’s death. The poem never explicitly states what "it" is, but the ambiguity only heightens the sense of dread, as the reader is left to piece together the fragments of a larger, more horrific narrative.

The poem’s final stanzas return to the recurring images of the ducks and the rock of Santa Maura, reinforcing the cyclical nature of the speaker’s memories. The ducks, now described as "seven lean ducks," have become symbols of persistence, their "fierce" movement suggesting a relentless, almost predatory force. The speaker insists, "I can tell you exactly how many times these seven lean ducks have gone fiercely round the rock of Santa Maura— / And show you worse things than your father sees / And show you things far worse than your father sees, Willy." This repetition underscores the speaker’s obsession with the past, as well as the implication that the father’s madness is only the tip of the iceberg—there are deeper, darker truths that remain hidden, truths that the speaker is both compelled to reveal and terrified to confront.

In "The Lute in the Attic," Patchen constructs a world where memory, guilt, and madness are inextricably linked. The title itself suggests something beautiful and forgotten—the lute, a symbol of music and art, lies abandoned in the attic, much like the speaker’s unresolved emotions. The attic, often a repository for forgotten or hidden objects, becomes a metaphor for the mind, a place where painful memories are stored but never truly silenced. Through its fragmented narrative, surreal imagery, and haunting repetitions, the poem captures the inescapable pull of the past and the ways in which unspoken traumas can fester, distorting not only the present but the very fabric of reality.

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