Is Poetry Afraid of Death?

There are a handful of grand themes which art always circles back to. Death being one of the most tired, not least because of our primal obsession with it, but because of how generically it is often portrayed. Of course, this is the ironic fate that befalls the most important subjects, which, by their very universality, struggle to achieve depth to match the breadth of their appeal. There is a tendency for art which is the easiest to digest intellectually to spread the farthest, cushioned by whatever entertainment value it has. The term “well-written” is thrown around a lot in praising shows and books, whether fictive or otherwise. Think about how it would be to discuss this piece by prioritizing how competent a wordsmith was its author, as though what was said were secondary. With an essay, we do lend much more credence to what is being communicated, and yet it doesn’t appear to be that way with art. While a focus on craft is not a bad thing, and technical felicity is a pre-requisite to doing anything of significance with art, we must not forget that “the point of fiction is a point” (from the poem Bread, by Dan Schneider). With poetry, being perhaps the most difficult of the arts, criticism is so often fixated on aesthetics — well, the aesthetics of criticism.

Art is at its best when it is at its most insightful. We all experience pain and loss; know of someone who has died and know too that we are mortal. Great art acts as a prism, allowing us to perceive the colors composing oblivion. It individuates the common experience of the masses. Bad art doesn’t do this, or at least, not in any meaningful way. Uniqueness in mere style is no substitute for substance. Let me be concrete with a few examples. The first poem was written anonymously, which is appropriate because there is nothing else to distinguish its author to be found within:

I Felt an Angel

I felt an angel near today, though one I could not see
I felt an angel oh so close, sent to comfort me

I felt an angel’s kiss, soft upon my cheek
And oh, without a single word of caring did it speak

I felt an angel’s loving touch, soft upon my heart
And with that touch, I felt the pain and hurt within depart

I felt an angel’s tepid tears, fall softly next to mine
And knew that as those tears did dry a new day would be mine

I felt an angel’s silken wings enfold me with pure love
And felt a strength within me grow, a strength sent from above

I felt an angel oh so close, though one I could not see
I felt an angel near today, sent to comfort me.

I think the music works well, but that’s about the only thing of merit about it. Other technical aspects are lacking, as you can see by all the clichés in bold. I would hesitate to call this more than a rhyme, because ultimately there is nothing poetic about it. Even the metaphor of the deceased soul taking the form of an angel is itself a cliché, and is not, well, granted new life here. Art like this, which is so safe that it is unwilling to say anything at all, and actively avoids dealing with its subject matter in a mature way, cannot give its readers the tools to do so. Thankfully, not all (if most) poetry on death is so puerile about it. Enter Rainer Maria Rilke, albeit with one of his lesser known poems, here translated by Edward Snow:

Death Experienced

We know nothing of this going hence
That so excludes us. We have no grounds
For showing Death amazement and love
Or hatred, since it wears the age-old mask

Of tragedy and hopelessly contorts it.
The world is full of roles — which we still act.
As long as we keep striving for acclaim,
Death also plays its part — though always badly.

But when you went, a streak of reality
Broke in upon the stage through that fissure
Where you’d left: green of real green,
Real sunshine, real forest.

We go on acting. Fearful and reciting
Things difficult to learn and now and then
Inventing gestures; but your existence,
Withdrawn from us and taken from our play,

Sometimes can come over us, like a knowledge
Of that reality settling in,
So that for a time we act life
Transported, not thinking of applause.

The only potential cliché, “wears the age-old mask” is subverted, since it is Death who is wearing it. The poem is about the rituals of life and death that shield us from the realities of such. The mask Death wears is “of tragedy,” for tragedy is the drama that surrounds it, but it is not it. That reflects, along with Stanza 1, on the title, which has dual meanings, for while we may not experience death directly, we do experience the role it plays in our lives. And yet, that fourth wall breaks down when we allow reality to upset the narrative. This is a characteristic of trauma, when we can no longer reconcile an event within our idealization of the world. Line 7 is interesting: in order to be successful you have to say and do the right things. Many people feel that they never had a choice in where they ended up, as if given a script, left to fear the consequences of forgetting a line. All you have control over is how well you perform. Stanzas 4 & 5: even when faced with reality, with trauma, we still continue, we must. Usually a ghost would enter here, but the sheer materialism of it all, of that which exists beyond the stage, is far more haunting. Still, the fear is not of the real, but of the play being spoiled by its presence.

This is what poetry can do, and I wouldn’t even call this poem great, but at least it does say something, quite a lot in fact. The translation retains the musicality present in the German, and overall it is just as easy to read as the first poem, though not so easy to digest. Because, allowing Rilke’s words to truly sink in, as it were, requires some reflection. It is so direct that even the old metaphor, the world as a stage, is undercut — we have constructed a fake world in which to live out very real lives, and we are only comforted by the illusion, as long as we can maintain it, that our lives are just as fake. But, when a character dies on stage, just a part of the script, so too does the actor.

I will leave you with one of the greatest poems on death ever written, in my opinion. It is another little known gem, although rather more difficult to interpret than Rilke’s poem. Its author, Wallace Stevens, was rarely so direct. I may go into detail about it at some point in the future although it would require a much longer piece than the entirety of this essay, so for now I will let you analyze it on your own:

Yellow Afternoon

It was in the earth only
That he was at the bottom of things
And of himself. There he could say
Of this I am, this is the patriarch,
This it is that answers when I ask,
This is the mute, the final sculpture
Around which silence lies on silence.
This repose alike in springtime
And, arbored and bronzed, in autumn.

He said I had this that I could love,
As one loves visible and responsive peace,
As one loves one’s own being,
As one loves that which is the end
And must be loved, as one loves that
Of which one is a part as in a unity,
A unity that is the life one loves,
So that one lives all the lives that comprise it
As the life of the fatal unity of war.

Everything comes to him
From the middle of his field. The odor
Of earth penetrates more deeply than any word.
There he touches his being. There as he is
He is. The thought that he had found all this
Among me, in a woman — she caught his breath —
But he came back as one comes back from the sun
To lie on one’s bed in the dark, close to a face
Without eyes or mouth, that looks at one and speaks.