Poetics of Collective Loss

        When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloomed is a poem recalling loss, death, and life. Whitman aims to make peace with the loss of the 'man he loved' leaving a sprig from the lilac bush on the coffin of this man which passes through the nation, casting the shadow of loss across all the people. I did not have Lilacs read for class last Thursday, since I got used to checking the motherblog for everything and threw the syllabus to the side. Then again, the motherblog should not be granted the honor of the prestigious title MOTHERblog if it doesn't have everything we need to know on it, right? Cmon son. No context. Like a G. Anyway, I was confused on Thursday, but I still took notes. Professor Hanley mentioned to pay close attention to the lilac sprig/bush, the 'star,' and the bird that sings the 'carol' of death. I haven't gone into all the connections these symbols have, but my basic understanding of his use of these symbols in the shallowest sense is that the lilac presents a symbol of life and offering of beauty to the dead. The 'star' which sometimes seems to represent the sun, and sometimes the moon (?), represents the coming and going of days, seasons, and life. The bird's song gives beauty to the idea of death as the start of a new beginning, which it seems the poem's speaker embraces by the end of the poem. I really enjoyed the poem. Hanley, you weren't lying. It's good stuff!

        The first 9/11 poem that struck me as similar to Lilacs was a part of Lucille Clifton's "September Songs, A Poem In Seven Days," specifically her poem for "Sunday."


and i am consumed with love
for all of it
the everydayness of bravery
of hate of fear of tragedy
of death and birth and hope
true as this river
and especially with love
bailey fredrica clifton goin
for you

        I might be stretching, but Whitman's poem has a sense that it takes the loss of life in the same way we take a day in, with the light waking us up in the morning before having the earth be covered in darkness by nightfall, only to be lightened up again in the morning. At the end of Lilacs the poem's speaker is chillin with his death companions and the bird at "dusk and dim" waiting for the new day to begin. This "Sunday" poem also looks towards the future, specifically the poet's young relative (daughter?) Bailey Fredrica Clifton and looking not only at death, but "death birth and hope."

        Another poem I wanted to look at was "Hum" by Ann Lauterbach. She repeats many of her phrases, emphasizing a certain type of connection between everything it seems, and finding beauty in everything. She also brings up the ideas of days ("tomorrow," "yesterday," and "these days") in the same way Whitman does when he speaks on the star in the west which I view as the sun about to set to begin the night, and then a new day. Lauterbach sees a new beginning by pointing out that the "words" retired to their "books," that the "stones" were looses from their "settings," and that the "ashes" of loss remained. I feel as if this looks to a world that has changed more than it has lost, and that a new beginning can be made as the raw materials are still in our posession, they are just in different places/forms.
Whitman also looks to beauty in nature in his poem, where Lauterbach mentions beauty many times in her poem as if to remind everyone of the beauty in the world before being drowned in the idea of loss. Whitman also tries to find beauty in death as an end to suffering.

        Here's a bonus that you don't have to read since it is a bit off tangent from the assignment: When Professor Hanley mentioned the Lilac, Star, and Bird, I couldn't help but think of this song covered by Richie Havens called "High Flying Bird." The song is about loss as well, and features lyrics involving a high-flying bird, the lucky Sun that travels across the sky and gets to "meet God everyday," as well as the speaker of the song, who is stuck on the ground, "rooted like a tree." Tree, Sun, and Bird. I just thought the symbols were similar, and they were all used to give a new vision to loss, as Richie Havens sings about how the woman he lost now "flies" as a result of her death, which she could never do in life. The symbols are used differently from the way they are used in Whitman's poem, but I thought it was weird how similar the symbols were anyway. It's one of my favorite songs. Beautiful stuff.