Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"First Book of Odes: 17" by Basil Bunting unfolds as a reflective and deeply evocative poem that intertwines themes of memory, loss, and the inexorable passage of time with the natural landscape. Through vivid imagery and a keen sense of place, Bunting crafts a narrative that explores the transformation of the familiar into the unrecognizable, and the haunting presence of what once was.

The poem begins with an image of the sea having overtaken an island, a powerful metaphor for change and the submersion of the past beneath the currents of time. The calm day with the sun sleeking "a patchwork hatching of combed weed over stubble and fallow alike" suggests a moment of deceptive tranquility that belies the profound alterations the landscape has undergone. This serene surface masks the turmoil of a drowned world beneath, where the markers of human presence—drowned blackthorn hedge, choked ditch, and rusty hinges—speak to a loss that is both physical and emotional.

Bunting's mention of "Trespassers will be prosecuted" amid the submerged copse adds a layer of irony to the poem. This sign, a vestige of human claims to land and property, now seems absurdly out of place under the water, emphasizing the futility of attempting to impose permanence on the ever-changing natural world.

The poet's admission of not knowing how to recognize the place "under the weeds and sand," despite never having seen it on land, suggests a deeper, perhaps metaphysical connection to the landscape. This connection transcends physical presence, hinting at a collective memory or a shared history that persists even as the physical world changes. The "trick of refraction" and the "film of light in the water" evoke the idea that our perceptions of places are layered and complex, shaped by emotions and memories that alter how we see the world.

Bunting further deepens this exploration of memory and loss by personifying the landscape with the image of a woman walking alone in her garden. The "luminous frock" becomes a symbol of the ephemeral beauty of nature and the past, simultaneously present and inaccessible. The description of the woman's "oval face, thin eyebrows wide of the eyes" and her premonitory gait suggests a haunting familiarity, a connection to a specific moment in time that remains palpable despite the transformations wrought by the sea.

The final lines of the poem reflect on the inevitability of change and the human desire to preserve what is cherished. The poet acknowledges the effort to organize and preserve memories ("these knicknacks her dislike collects") as an act not of vindictiveness but of passion's economy. Yet, the ultimate realization is one of acceptance: the natural world will adopt and perpetuate its own patterns, indifferent to human desires or memories.

"First Book of Odes: 17" concludes with a contemplation of the impermanence of connections and the likelihood of never reencountering the personified landscape or, metaphorically, the past. The fear of the latch, a symbol of entering or revisiting a once-familiar place, encapsulates the poem's overarching theme of the tension between the desire to return and the recognition of irretrievable change.

Through "First Book of Odes: 17," Basil Bunting masterfully weaves together the personal and the universal, the temporal and the timeless, offering a poignant meditation on the landscapes of memory and the ceaseless flow of time that shapes and reshapes our worlds.

POEM TEXT:

Now that sea's over that island so that barely on a calm day sun sleeks a patchwork hatching of combed weed over stubble and fallow alike

I resent drowned blackthorn hedge, choked ditch, gates breaking from rusty hinges, the submerged copse, Trespassers will be prosecuted.

Sea's over that island, weed over furrow and dungheap: but how I should recognise the place under the weeds and sand

who was never in it on land I dont know: some trick of refraction,

a film of light in the water crumpled and spread like a luminous frock on a woman walking alone in her garden.

Oval face, thin eyebrows wide of the eyes, a premonition in the gait of this subaqueous persistence of a particular year -

for you had prepared it for preservation not vindictively, urged by the economy of passions.

Nobody said: She is organising these knicknacks her dislike collects

into a pattern nature will adopt and perpetuate.

Weed over meadowgrass, sea over weed, no step on the gravel.

Very likely I shall never meet her again or if I do, fear the latch as before.

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