Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Michael McClure’s "Grafting: 19" is a meditation on art, perception, and the organic forces that shape both consciousness and creative expression. It seamlessly weaves references to visual art, natural phenomena, and sensory experience, evoking a dynamic interplay between the unconscious and the deliberate, between play and power. Like much of McClure’s work, the poem exists at the threshold of instinct and intellect, grounding its surreal visions in the physical world while hinting at deeper, unseen energies.

The poem opens with a juxtaposition of two towering figures of modern art—"MIRÓ KNOWS IT IS ALL PLAY AND POLLOCK UNDERSTANDS the unconscious power." Joan Miró, the Spanish surrealist, is often associated with whimsical, dreamlike compositions that embrace spontaneity and childlike wonder, while Jackson Pollock’s abstract expressionism is rooted in a raw, intuitive engagement with paint and movement. By placing them together, McClure highlights two complementary approaches to creativity: the playful and the primal, the conscious and the subconscious. This duality sets the stage for the poem’s exploration of artistic process as something that emerges organically from within, much like the forces of nature.

The next lines—"CONSCIOUSNESS RISES UP in a green wave with a darting grebe, neck outstretched and wings like fins, fishing in the crest."—extend this idea into the natural world. The green wave suggests both a literal image of ocean motion and a metaphor for awareness unfolding, an almost evolutionary surge of perception. The darting grebe—a waterbird known for its rapid movements and ability to dive underwater—embodies a kind of instinctual intelligence, moving effortlessly through its environment in search of sustenance. The bird’s posture, neck outstretched and wings like fins, transforms it into something between avian and aquatic, a hybrid being that reflects the fluidity of consciousness itself. The grebe becomes a living sculpture, a transient work of art shaped by the natural elements—"The beach sun behind makes it a sculpture."—suggesting that beauty and meaning arise naturally from movement, light, and instinct.

The poem then shifts its focus to elemental forces—"THE WIND AND GRAVEL stir shapes of uprising reason."—bringing attention to the raw, unformed matter from which thought emerges. Wind and gravel are unshaped, chaotic, but here they stir and give rise to reason, implying that cognition is not merely abstract but deeply connected to the material world. This aligns with McClure’s lifelong interest in biology and the idea that human thought is a product of the same natural processes that govern the movement of air, water, and stone.

The final lines—"EARS, EYES, NOSE, TONGUE, grow rich to accept such carving AND WE ARE BLANK SPOTS OF BLACKNESS sprouting tiny, many-colored flowers."—underscore the poem’s sensory and organic themes. The enumeration of ears, eyes, nose, tongue emphasizes the body’s role in perception, framing sensory experience as a means of receiving and interpreting the world’s carving—a sculpting force that shapes both the physical and the mental. The phrase grow rich to accept suggests an increasing receptivity, an openness to being molded by experience.

The closing image—"AND WE ARE BLANK SPOTS OF BLACKNESS sprouting tiny, many-colored flowers."—is among the most striking in the poem. The idea of being blank spots of blackness evokes a sense of mystery, potential, or even void—suggesting that at our core, we are undefined, waiting to be filled with experience and meaning. Yet, from this darkness, tiny, many-colored flowers emerge, symbolizing growth, transformation, and the spontaneous flourishing of beauty. This aligns with the earlier invocation of Miró and Pollock, reinforcing the idea that both play and unconscious forces are essential to creativity and understanding.

The poem concludes with a brief note—"during Haydn quartet", grounding the experience in the act of listening to classical music. This detail adds another dimension to the poem’s exploration of art and perception. Haydn’s string quartets are known for their precision, elegance, and intricate interplay between instruments, providing a contrast to the seemingly chaotic natural elements described earlier. The juxtaposition suggests that, just as wind and gravel give shape to thought, structured musical compositions can act as a vessel for deeper, more instinctual forces.

In "Grafting: 19", McClure draws together artistic, natural, and sensory elements into a singular meditation on consciousness and creation. By invoking Miró and Pollock, he acknowledges two opposing yet complementary modes of artistic engagement—playfulness and raw intuition. Through the imagery of waves, birds, wind, and sculpture, he portrays consciousness as something fluid and emergent, shaped by external forces yet also capable of spontaneous growth. The final image of blackness sprouting many-colored flowers suggests that from the unknown and undefined, new forms of beauty and understanding continually arise. The poem ultimately affirms that to be alive is to be shaped by these forces, to engage with the world through both instinct and perception, and to find meaning in the interplay between order and chaos.

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