In Closing

Paul Baerman — Sat, 17 Aug 2024 04:40:24 +0000

I think a lot about the sense of closure in literature, probably because of Frank Kermode’s The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (1967), in which he argues that a key element of the author-reader contract is finding consonance between a beginning, a middle, and an end; and that particular, identifiable techniques govern this process, especially for conclusions. His theory applies equally well to poetry, and some years ago I wrote a paper on George Herbert’s techniques along these lines. But never mind that.

I admire Louis MacNeice’s facility at endings. Here is the end of canto XXI in MacNeice’s Autumn Journal (1939):

     I feel that such a defeat is also treason,
            That deaths like these are lies.
     A fire should be left burning
            Till it burns itself out:
     We shan't have another chance to dance and shout
            Once the flames are silent.

He hasn’t been in a strict meter up to now, but here the rhythm is especially unsettling. He ends with

hexameter
trimeter
tetrameter
pentameter
tetrameter
trimeter

in contrast with the more regular pattern he established earlier. This shift creates a sense of imbalance or unease, letting us know that we’re lurching toward some kind of distressing denouement. Also, notice the end-rhymes in the penultimate and antepenultimate lines in tandem with the final trimeter, abrupt and unrhymed. Far from reassuring us that all’s right with the world, that we’ve come full circle, that last line dangles there in space, reinforcing the sense that the speaker is bereft and lonely, preoccupied with death and extinction. And what better way to signal an ending than with the word “silent”?

Remember too that the autumn of the title refers to the year 1939 in England, with Hitler in full swing and the future looking very uncertain for Great Britain.

I was inspired by MacNeice’s mastery to aim for an unsettled ending of my own in my Jacob-and-the-angel poem, How I Came to Cross the Jabbok:

I had erred but I must have the nerve, the guts
to go on. I limped toward the implacable river,
toward damaged Esau whom I loved and despised.
A penitent with peaceful intent,
in fear and hope I took my first
short step into that cold, cold water.

My rhythm’s more predictable than I’d like, and my rhymes deliberately internal, or slant, or reduced to mere consonance and assonance. But I want to break the reader contract, leaving that last line dangling to reinforce the sense. Of course the repetition of “cold,” which I’ve not done elsewhere in the poem, is a signal of completion. Still, there’s no “turn” as in the concluding couplet of many a Shakespearian sonnet; rather we get to see Jacob’s final decision after all his hemming and hawing, his braggadocio and fear. Jacob accepts responsibility at last.

By the way, I can see three very valid readings of my poem aside from the shamelessly literal:

The Psychological, in which there is no angel except in Jacob’s mind. He’s wrestling with his conscience, which has kept him from crossing the river — because his people may die or because he’s ashamed and doesn’t want to own up, or because he’s simply scared.
The American Political, in which the story is an analogy for slavery reparations in the United States.
The Middle Eastern Political, in which the story evokes the current war between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza.

Jacob will be revealed in all his glory this Sunday as part of a poetry service at the Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Durham, NC. Maybe I’ll see you there.

reparations – Paul Baerman

In Closing