Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Lawrence Durrell's poem "Green Man" offers a rich tapestry of imagery and metaphor, exploring themes of creation, transformation, and the cyclical nature of existence. The title itself evokes the figure of the Green Man, a symbol often associated with rebirth, nature, and the life force, which hints at the underlying motifs of growth and renewal in the poem.

The poem opens with a striking pastoral image: "Four small nouns I put to pasture, / Lambs of cloud on a green paper." Here, Durrell likens nouns—simple, fundamental words—to lambs, creatures of innocence and purity, set to graze on "green paper," perhaps representing the fertile ground of poetic creation. This suggests that language, in its most basic form, is both nurturing and nurtured, growing like living beings in the landscape of the poet's imagination.

"My love leans like a beadle at her book, / Her smile washes the seven cities." The poet introduces a figure of love, someone who is immersed in a book, with the seriousness and authority of a beadle, a minor church official. The phrase "Her smile washes the seven cities" evokes a sense of vast influence and gentle power, as if her smile has the ability to cleanse or purify whole civilizations. This image underscores the transformative power of love, which can affect the world on a grand scale.

The next lines, "I am the spring's greenest publicity, / And my poem is all wrist and elbow," introduce the speaker as the embodiment of spring, the season of growth and renewal. The phrase "greenest publicity" suggests that the speaker is at the height of vibrancy and vitality, a living advertisement for the energy and freshness of spring. The description of the poem as "all wrist and elbow" conveys a sense of physicality and movement, as if the act of writing is an active, almost athletic endeavor, full of energy and life.

The speaker then declares, "O I am not daedal and need wings, / My oracle kisses a black wand." The term "daedal" refers to something intricate or skillfully crafted, but the speaker denies this quality, suggesting that their creativity is more straightforward, perhaps more primal. The "black wand" could symbolize a tool of magic or prophecy, indicating that the speaker's inspiration or guidance comes from a mysterious, almost otherworldly source.

"One great verb I dip in ink / For the tortoise who carries the earth:" Here, Durrell invokes the image of a verb—a word of action or being—infused with ink, symbolizing the creative act of writing. The tortoise, a mythological symbol often associated with the earth's stability and slow, deliberate movement, suggests that this act of creation is both powerful and enduring. The "grammar of fate" is compared to the "map of China" or "wrinkles sit in the palm of a girl," both intricate patterns that tell stories of destiny and time, hinting at the inevitability and complexity of life’s unfolding.

The speaker reflects on their own position within this act of creation: "I enter my poem like a son's house." This suggests a sense of belonging and familiarity, as if the poem is not just a creation but a home, a place of identity and inheritance. The "ancient thought" that "nothing will change" introduces a note of permanence or resignation, as if acknowledging that, despite the vitality of creation, some things remain constant.

The poem concludes with a return to the initial imagery: "But the nouns are back in the bottle, / I ache and she is warm, was warm, is warm." The nouns, once set to pasture, are now returned to their container, implying a closing or a return to order after the creative outburst. The speaker's acknowledgment of physical ache and the warmth of love, which transcends time ("was warm, is warm"), brings the poem full circle, blending the transient with the eternal, the physical with the emotional.

"Green Man" is a meditation on the creative process, the cyclical nature of life, and the enduring power of love and language. Durrell's use of vivid, organic imagery and shifting tenses captures the dynamic interplay between creation and rest, change and constancy, in the natural world and in the human heart. Through the figure of the Green Man, the poem suggests that all creation is a form of renewal, an act of bringing forth life from the raw materials of language and experience.

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