Warren's Poetics of Sequence: The Case ofIsland of Summer

Island of Summer, the sequence of fifteen poems that forms the first part of Warren'sIncarnations: Poems 1966-1968, is “one beautifully interlaced and very rich, massive long poem”—as Cleanth Brooks described it in a letter to the poet. The poems are so tightly interwoven that “there is a not a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Style (University Park, PA) PA), 2002-06, Vol.36 (2), p.271-291
Main Author: Runyon, Randolph Paul
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bones
Eyes
Fugitive poets
Hair
Ivy
Narrative poetry
Narrators
Poetics
Poetry
Stanzas
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Summary:Island of Summer, the sequence of fifteen poems that forms the first part of Warren'sIncarnations: Poems 1966-1968, is “one beautifully interlaced and very rich, massive long poem”—as Cleanth Brooks described it in a letter to the poet. The poems are so tightly interwoven that “there is a not a weak link in the chain.” Brooks did not elaborate, but when read with his comments in mind the sequence reveals its secrets: each poem repeats elements of the immediately preceding poem, often through self-referential themes such as inwardness (relating to the inwardness of each poem considered separately) versus outwardness (the poem's connections to the rest of the sequence), and left-to-right transits (a bullet passing through a Nazi helmet, a bikinied hunchback crossing one's line of vision) that replicate the reader's experience of reading a text from left to right and the sequence from beginning to end. At the same time, the sequence enriches our understanding of Warren's persistent retelling of the Perseus myth, already evident in other poems and in the novels, in particular the hero's golden-showered conception and his slaying of the Medusa.
ISSN:0039-4238
2374-6629