Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Michael McClure’s "Grafting: 14" unfolds as a meditation on transformation, perception, and the interplay between the mundane and the mystical. Like much of McClure’s poetry, it embraces sensory richness, layering physical details with metaphysical inquiry. The poem operates in a mode of simultaneity, where tactile, domestic imagery coexists with abstract spiritual concerns. It explores how experience—whether in the simple act of washing sheets or in the complexity of self-awareness—forms an ever-evolving substrate of meaning.

The opening image—"WATER BOILS IN THE BIG COPPER TUB. White sheets will be dipped in the blueing. Wrung out in the wringer and then hung up to dry."—is a scene of purification, a transformation of raw material into something renewed. The reference to blueing, a traditional whitening agent used in laundry, evokes an alchemical process, where dullness is replaced with brightness. McClure often imbues everyday rituals with a kind of sacred weight, and here, the act of laundering becomes a metaphor for cleansing, preparation, and renewal.

Then, a shift—"THE SUBSTRATE IS SO VIBRANT that I can’t get close to it."—introduces a feeling of distance, of something fundamental and alive yet just beyond reach. Substrate suggests an underlying essence, the base layer of reality, something that both supports and eludes direct engagement. The poet acknowledges an intense vitality in this foundation, but its very intensity prevents intimacy with it. This could represent an elusive truth, an awareness that is sensed but not fully grasped.

This substrate is identified as "YOU. YOU who are as the owl hoots." The capitalized YOU emphasizes a direct, intimate address to another presence, possibly a lover, a muse, or even an abstract force—an embodiment of the numinous. The comparison to an owl hooting introduces a nocturnal, almost oracular quality; owls are symbols of wisdom, mystery, and the unseen. The beloved, or the subject of the poem, is thus aligned with something enigmatic and deeply natural—heard but not easily seen, understood but never entirely possessed.

The next lines—"FIRST we experiment with selves, the imprints that we invent before us."—suggest that identity itself is a process of trial and error. Experimenting with selves implies that personhood is not fixed but performed, tested, and refined. These imprints are the projections of selfhood, the traces of experience and interaction that precede and shape identity.

What follows is a sensory explosion—"of feathering touch, of lips to breasts, of piano making notes being Haydn, silk quilts, slash of wind in the snowstorm, taste of black cherry, yellow olive oil floating in sour cream with the flesh of herring." This rapid sequence of tactile, auditory, and gustatory details represents the texture of existence, the richness of physical engagement with the world. Each element—whether it is the delicacy of a lover’s touch or the sharp tang of herring—contributes to the construction of experience. The mention of Haydn grounds this in the realm of structured beauty, music that is precise yet expressive, reinforcing the idea that life’s chaos can coalesce into form.

McClure then declares—"From that falls out the possibility of the numinous." Here, the sensual and the spiritual intersect; from the raw material of sensation and experience emerges the potential for transcendence. This moment echoes Rilke’s idea in The Duino Elegies that beauty and terror are entwined, that the physical world is not separate from the divine but a gateway to it.

Yet, the poem does not resolve into pure transcendence. Instead, it acknowledges the simultaneous presence of uncertainty and fragility—"HOPE. Unease. Small, shining, sizeless triumphs like knots in oak roots rest on the ground with dandelions and grasses around." The contrast between hope and unease speaks to the tension in the human condition: the longing for meaning, tempered by doubt. The phrase small, shining, sizeless triumphs is paradoxical—these victories are intangible, yet real; they are felt but defy measurement. The image of knots in oak roots suggests resilience, the ways in which obstacles are woven into the very structure of life. Dandelions and grasses, humble and persistent, add a sense of the everyday miracle of endurance.

The line—"Even skandhas have skandhas."—is an allusion to Buddhist philosophy, where skandhas refer to the five aggregates that compose human experience: form, sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness. By asserting that even these fundamental aspects have their own layers, McClure suggests an infinite regression, a world where everything is composed of further, fractal-like components. It is a recognition that there is no final answer, only deeper and deeper structures.

The final lines are filled with luminous, almost surreal imagery—"Agnosia goes blind. Hummingbirds with pink-gold breasts and a red full moon is rising." Agnosia, a condition of not recognizing objects or people, going blind suggests an ultimate surrender to mystery, an acceptance that not everything must be understood. The mention of hummingbirds—creatures of rapid motion and intense energy—adds a moment of beauty and vibrancy, while the red full moon carries connotations of passion, transformation, and the cyclical nature of time.

"Grafting: 14" is an intricate meditation on perception, transformation, and the layering of experience. McClure presents a world where physical sensations—washing sheets, tasting food, hearing an owl—merge with existential and spiritual concerns. The poem suggests that identity is not static but an experiment, that meaning arises from the interplay of the sensory and the numinous. Ultimately, the poem resists closure, ending with an image of perpetual unfolding, where awareness and blindness coexist, and where the red moon continues to rise.

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