Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

In "Versions," Robert Creeley draws from Thomas Hardy’s spirit, delving into the haunting persistence of past emotions and unresolved connections. Creeley’s poem channels Hardy’s melancholic themes, particularly the anguish of revisiting lost love and the haunting specter of past relationships that linger in the mind. With restrained language and repetition, Creeley evokes a cyclical sense of pain, as if the speaker is trapped within the memories of a love that is irrevocably lost yet inexplicably present.

The opening lines, “Why would she come to him, / come to him, / in such disguise / to look again at him— / look again—,” set up a repetitive structure that mirrors the haunting, inescapable nature of the speaker’s thoughts. The phrase “come to him…in such disguise” suggests a ghostly presence or an apparition—perhaps a memory rather than a physical visit. This “disguise” can be interpreted as the layers of time and emotional distance that obscure the reality of the past relationship, leaving the speaker grasping at the remnants of a presence that is no longer fully tangible. The repetition of phrases like “come to him” and “look again” emphasizes the obsessive, almost ritualistic revisiting of these memories, as though the speaker is compulsively returning to an emotional site of loss.

Creeley’s use of repetition in "Versions" serves not just as a stylistic choice but as a structural device that underscores the idea of memory as a loop, a series of impressions that replay without resolution. This looping mirrors the way grief and unresolved emotions often operate—they do not move forward linearly but return in cycles, each time bringing with them the pain and confusion of their initial appearance. By echoing phrases like “look again” and “again begin,” Creeley captures the painful stasis of unresolved feelings, suggesting that some emotional wounds resist closure, keeping the speaker ensnared in a futile attempt to “begin again” something that “had never been.”

The poem’s language shifts as it questions “why the pain still, / the pain— / still useless to them—.” Here, Creeley explores the senselessness of clinging to this pain, hinting at the absence of resolution or reconciliation. The phrase “still useless to them” implies that whatever had been shared is no longer accessible or beneficial to either party. This mutual disconnect amplifies the speaker’s frustration, for the pain has become “useless”—a relic of something that neither individual can use or derive meaning from anymore. This sentiment reflects Hardy’s exploration of lingering sorrow and the inexplicable pull of the past, where even painful memories hold a strange allure, despite their inability to foster growth or understanding.

The speaker’s questions—“Why be / persistently / hurtful— / no truth / to tell / or wish to? / Why?”—reflect a search for understanding amid a sense of betrayal or emotional abandonment. The absence of “truth” to either “tell or wish to” suggests that whatever connection once existed has faded to the point where it holds no meaningful truths for the speaker or the figure he addresses. The word “persistently” speaks to the endurance of the hurt, while “hurtful” hints that there is an element of cruelty or insensitivity in the way these memories intrude upon the speaker’s consciousness. This line might be interpreted as the speaker questioning his own attachment to this lost relationship—why does he continue to hold onto it, and to what end?

As the poem moves toward its conclusion, the setting emerges as a somber, external reflection of the speaker’s inner turmoil: “The weather’s still grey / and the clouds gather / where they once walked / out together.” This imagery of gathering clouds and grey weather serves as a visual metaphor for the melancholy that surrounds the memory of their past relationship. The repetition of “still” in “The weather’s still grey” emphasizes a sense of unchanging sorrow, as if the external world, like the speaker’s emotions, remains caught in a melancholic stasis. The reference to a shared past, “where they once walked out together,” brings to mind Hardy’s frequent use of landscapes as mirrors for emotional states. In Creeley’s poem, the place where the couple once shared moments of “faint happiness” has become a site of lingering sorrow, a place where that “happiness” faded into loss.

The final lines, “greeted the world with / a faint happiness, / watched it die / in the same place,” capture the ultimate fragility of human connections. The “faint happiness” suggests that even at its height, the relationship may have been shadowed by an awareness of its limitations or eventual end. The fact that they “watched it die / in the same place” suggests a sense of inevitability, as if the relationship’s end was inscribed from the beginning. This ending speaks to the futility of revisiting these memories in hopes of altering or understanding them, as the speaker finds himself still emotionally tethered to a love that faded in the very place it first blossomed.

In "Versions," Creeley’s minimalistic style allows the depth of the speaker’s emotional landscape to emerge without embellishment, relying on subtle shifts in repetition and language to convey the inescapable nature of memory and loss. Drawing on Hardy’s influence, Creeley creates a poem that speaks to the persistence of sorrow and the way past relationships leave an indelible mark on our consciousness. Like Hardy, Creeley understands that certain emotional landscapes are destined to remain grey, that some connections, once lost, transform into endless loops of “again” and “still”—unfinished, unresolved, and forever haunting.

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