LITR 5535: American Romanticism
Student Poetry Presentation 2005

Michelle Gooding

Simon J. Ortiz, “Earth and Rain, the Plants & Sun”

The poem “Earth and Rain, the Plants & Sun,” by Simon J. Ortiz, is simple and complex at the same time.  It is made up of mostly simple, familiar words, but they are arranged in a way that clouds or changes their meaning for me.  The structure of the poem gives us a hint of the visual picture that Ortiz is painting, especially in lines 8-14 and 22-26.  

Romantic Elements:

--Lots of references to nature: Lines 4-5, 19-21, 25-26, 34-35, 40-41

--Line 3: “I stopped and looked.”--in order to appreciate nature

--Interplay of light and dark: “Sunlight falls/ through cloud curtains,/ a straight bright shaft.”

--Lines 31-33: can you get more romantic than neverending love?

My guesses at what this poem means:

--Of the items in the title, all but rain are mentioned directly.  Lines 14-16: “the sky/ It is writhing/ overhead.”  When does the sky “writhe?”  When a storm is coming—and the next two lines seem to indicate the same: “Hear. The Bringer./ The Thunderer.”  “The Bringer” must be the bringer of rain, and may be the same as “The Thunderer,” as thunder generally precedes rain.  Then he speaks of the Katzina, whose main purpose is to bring rain.  Also, lines 34-35: “Again and again,/ the earth is new again.”  To me, rain always seems to give the world a “washed clean” look.  The narrator tells his son to listen as the Katzina come, which could be the same as listening for the rain. 

--What about lines 40-41: “The plants with bells./ The stones with voices”?  My first impression of those lines was to think of  Luke 19:40 “'if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.'”  However, it could be the sound of the rain on the stones, but what about the “plants with bells?”

This brings me to my questions for you:

1.    What does this poem mean?

2.    How is this poem not romantic?