[564] Warning to Children
Guest poem submitted by Reed C Bowman <hammerquill@>
Well, the appearance of another Milne poem gives me a perfect chance to
submit this, which I have been wanting to send in since I first found it was
not on the site.
I would like to submit Robert Graves'
Children, if you dare to think
Of the greatness, rareness, muchness
Fewness of this precious only
Endless world in which you say
You live, you think of things like this:
Blocks of slate enclosing dappled
Red and green, enclosing tawny
Yellow nets, enclosing white
And black acres of dominoes,
Where a neat brown paper parcel
Tempts you to untie the string.
In the parcel a small island,
On the island a large tree,
On the tree a husky fruit.
Strip the husk and pare the rind off:
In the kernel you will see
Blocks of slate enclosed by dappled
Red and green, enclosed by tawny
Yellow nets, enclosed by white
And black acres of dominoes,
Where the same brown paper parcel -
Children, leave the string alone!
For who dares undo the parcel
Finds himself at once inside it,
On the island, in the fruit,
Blocks of slate about his head,
Finds himself enclosed by dappled
Green and red, enclosed by yellow
Tawny nets, enclosed by black
And white acres of dominoes,
With the same brown paper parcel
Still untied upon his knee.
And, if he then should dare to think
Of the fewness, muchness, rareness,
Greatness of this endless only
Precious world in which he says
he lives - he then unties the string.
-- Robert Graves
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My father introduced me to this poem, as one of his favorites. It
captured me by its imagery out of dreams (or hallucinations - Graves was
not averse to the occasional psychotropic), rendered the more vivid
and ensorceling by the strong meter and (almost) repetition. Some years
ago I decided to try to memorize it, and found it difficult, because of
the slight changes with each recurrence of the cycle. Then I wrote it
out, and found I understood it better and could memorize it. There is
nothing like slow and careful calligraphy, I find, to make one pay
attention to every nuance of every word (and indeed letter) - the only
thing that comes close is setting type by hand ... but not that many of
us do that sort of thing, more's the pity.
The poem's structure is intricate and, involving as it does the concept
of infinite regress, it is self-referential. The reversal of "enclosing"
to "enclosed by" allows the poet to escape from the infinite regress,
even while involving the daring child more directly in the visual and
tactile maelstrom.
At the end, of course, the outcome is a vindication and validation of
curiosity and daring to think. The Yellow Submarinesque enfoldings of
the package, island, and child stand for the wonders, the wonder of the
world as seen by the inquisitive mind and eye. And that is the real
reason the poem should be read by and to children.
One last note: I find, when I read this poem aloud (almost all poems
should be read aloud) or recite it, that the first string of adjectives
"the greatness, rareness, muchness,/Fewness of this precious only/
Endless world..." reads with "only" somehow qualifying "endless", or
being almost a mere conjunction. In the second instance, I find myself
reading it with equal weight and space to the adjectives around it, as
if it were commaed off and part of the list: "this Endless, Only,
Precious world." I suppose that's going a bit against Graves'
instructions (a.k.a. his punctuation) but I find the reading powerfully
suggests itself.
Reed
[I've added in a few links - martin]
We've run several of Graves' poems before; there's a biography at poem #55
Another dizzingly Escherian poem is Kreymborg's 'Geometry': poem #306
The Milne poem referred to is the recently run poem #562
Also, the mention of Milne in conjunction with today's poem reminds me of
one of my favourite verse fragments from his work:
I think I am a Traveller escaping from a Bear
I think I am an Elephant
Behind another Elephant
Behind *another* Elephant who isn't really there...
- A. A. Milne, from 'Busy'
martin
From: "Anna McIntyre" <annamcintyre@>
hmmmmmmm
i think that this poem is about the dangers of wanting,
the great motivation of capitalism.
it is perhaps along the lines of " the imagination is a great tool, but
terrible master"?
like it love it yum yum yum
(but it also gives me shivers)
anna
From: mohammad saleem <m.saleem@>
did you get my email? if not here is a breif summary of wut i said. I need your help to help me understand the poem. My email is muthypoo_9@
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<DIV><FONT size=2>did you get my email? if not here is a breif summary of wut i
said. I need your help to help me understand the poem. My email is <A
href="mailto:muthypoo_9@">muthypoo_9@hotmail.com</A></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>
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From: mohammad saleem <m.saleem@>
i don really like the poem because i couldnt really understand it as well as i usually can. Most poems i have read are pretty hard to understand for otheres, but they come easy to me. Why dont i understand this one? If you get this, plz tell me wut you think about the poem. It would help alot!! :) My email is muthypoo_92hotmail.com.
thx again.
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<DIV><FONT size=2>i don really like the poem because i couldnt really understand
it as well as i usually can. Most poems i have read are pretty hard to
understand for otheres, but they come easy to me. Why dont i understand this
one? If you get this, plz tell me wut you think about the poem. It would help
alot!! :) My email is muthypoo_92hotmail.com.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>thx again.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>
--Boundary_(ID_rbqDQm7f7KKHFboDFZdlAg)--
From: Martin DeMello <martindemello@>
--- mohammad saleem <m.saleem@> wrote:
> i don really like the poem because i couldnt really understand it as well as
> i usually can. Most poems i have read are pretty hard to understand for
> otheres, but they come easy to me. Why dont i understand this one? If you get
> this, plz tell me wut you think about the poem. It would help alot!! :) My
> email is muthypoo_92hotmail.com.
> thx again.
Hi Mohammed,
Reread the poem in light of Reed's commentary:
The poem's structure is intricate and, involving as it does the concept
of infinite regress, it is self-referential. The reversal of "enclosing"
to "enclosed by" allows the poet to escape from the infinite regress,
even while involving the daring child more directly in the visual and
tactile maelstrom.
At the end, of course, the outcome is a vindication and validation of
curiosity and daring to think. The Yellow Submarinesque enfoldings of
the package, island, and child stand for the wonders, the wonder of the
world as seen by the inquisitive mind and eye. And that is the real
reason the poem should be read by and to children.
It might help to think of it as the poetic equivalent of one of Escher's
paintings (if you're not familiar with Escher, take a look at
http://www.worldofescher.com/gallery/), where the question is not so much what
it *means* as what it *is*. Look through some of the Escher paintings, then go
back and read the poem aloud, noting the loops and subtle variations, the way
parts of it appear to contain and be contained by other parts, the way the
sound and imagery weave themselves into the theme.
martin