LITR / CRCL 5734 UHCL 2008 Poetry Presentation

LITR 5734: Colonial & Postcolonial Literature

Student Poetry Presentation 2008

Thursday, 28 February: Poetry reading from Walcott: “The Season of Phantasmal Peace” (464-65)

reader: C. Vanessa Olivier

The Season of Phantasmal Peace

Derek Walcott

Objectives:

2b. To extend the intertextuality of the novel or fiction to poetry and film by colonial, imperial, or post-colonial sources, especially Derek Walcott of St. Lucia, West Indies (b. 1930; Nobel Prize for Literature, 1992).

Definitions:

Phantasmal –

1. a product of fantasy; a delusive appearance; a figment of the imagination; a

mental representation of a real object

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phantasmal

2. something apparently seen but having no physical reality; a phantom or an

apparition; an illusory mental image; in Platonic philosophy, objective reality

as perceived and distorted by the five senses.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/phantasmal

Introduction:

In general, I think the poem centers on the themes of peace, hope, and healing and the possibilities of such. Particularly intriguing is the author’s use of rich metaphors and meaningful symbols to evoke raw emotion and vivid imagery.

The idea behind this work called to mind the song “Imagine” by John Lennon and its emphasis on the possibilities of global harmony. The reference to “multitudinous dialects” reminded me of the biblical story, The Tower of Babel (the confusion of tongues)

The Season of Phantasmal Peace
by Derek Walcott

Then all the nations of birds lifted together the huge net of the shadows of this earth in multitudinous dialects, twittering tongues, stitching and crossing it. They lifted up the shadows of long pines down trackless slopes, the shadows of glass-faced towers down evening streets, the shadow of a frail plant on a city sill -- the net rising soundless at night, the birds' cries soundless, until there was no longer dusk, or season, decline, or weather, only this passage of phantasmal light that not the narrowest shadow dared to sever.
And men could not see, looking up, what the wild geese drew, what the ospreys trailed behind them in the silvery ropes that flashed in the icy sunlight; they could not hear battalions of starlings waging peaceful cries, bearing the net higher, covering this world like the vines of an orchard, or a mother drawing the trembling gauze over the trembling eyes
of a child fluttering to sleep;
	it was the light
that you will see at evening on the side of a hill in yellow October, and no one hearing knew what change had brought into the raven's cawing, the killdeer's screech, the ember-circling chough such an immense, soundless, and high concern for the fields and cities where the birds belong, except it was their seasonal passing, Love, made seasonless, or, from the high privilege of their birth, something brighter than pity for the wingless ones below them who shared dark holes in windows and in houses, and higher they lifted the net with soundless voices above all change, betrayals of falling suns, and this season lasted one moment, like the pause between dusk and darkness, between fury and peace, but, for such as our earth is now, it lasted long.

Presenter’s Poem Interpretation:

1. /”Then all the nations of the birds…”/…”in multitudinous dialects”/ - pretty clear cut reference to all the people of the world coming together and overcoming the language barrier. Throughout the remainder of the poem, the author also refers to different species of birds/ different call sounds. (pictures included below).

2. The next lines describes the lifting up of all the shadows of the Earth, leaving only the “phantasmal light”. This idea reminded me of the biblical verse in John 1:5 – “And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness did not overcome it.”

3. Next, the author describes the activities of the different birds, emphasizing the fact that mankind cannot see or hear this. I can almost picture people standing around in awe, looking up at the sky. The passage, /”…covering this earth like the vines of an orchard or a mother drawing the trembling gauze over the trembling eyes of a child…”/ indicates the protective and nurturing nature of the birds and what they are trying to demonstrate to mankind.

4. The multiple uses of the term soundless seem to imply peace and also that all of this happened without much attention. The poem tells us that the motives behind this whole act are driven by Love (in fact, Love is the only capitalized word not required grammatically in the entire poem). The birds are not judging or showing pity. This selfless act comes from something higher and purer.

5. The last lines of the poem seek to inspire. The birds achieved their goal despite all obstacles /”above all change, betrayal of falling suns”/. The author compares the pause between dusk and darkness to the pause between fury and peace. This seems to imply one of two things: 1) there is a short distance from fury to peace (a hopeful note) or 2) the length of time between fury and peace is never long (not so hopeful). Regardless, the author assures us that it doesn’t matter how long the peaceful moment lasted but that it was possible in the first place. He ends on a note of empowerment, inspiration, and hope.

Questions:

1. Phantasmal, as mentioned earlier, means an illusory mental image or something apparently seen but having no physical reality. That being said, what do you think the author means by phantasmal peace?

2. From what we have read of Chinua Achebe, do you think he believes there can be peace, or has the past/colonialism completely erased any hope of reconciliation?

Taken from 2003 Poetry Presentation by Natalie Martinez:

Natalie Martinez: Walcott calls his poem a prayer and a vision of peace.

Dr. White: I like the prayer idea. I think that a way to connect it with A Passage to India would be in terms of the mystical. It’s kind of visionary, it’s kind of uplifting, it’s kind of whole. Mysticism seeks to unify all things. Mysticism works in terms of oxymorons. One way of looking at it is God is a circle of reality with a circumference everywhere and a center nowhere –pulled two directions at once. An example would be Godbole (main Hindu mystic). He sees things in terms of the many and the one. The unity that encompasses multiplicity. Hinduism is an extreme version of a unitary reality or God going under many names.

Conclusion:

“The Season of Phantasmal Peace” describes the universal human longing for peace on earth. The spiritual and transcendent nature of the work seeks to encourage mankind to not give up the fight for this peace and to never set limits on the possibilities of Love. To enlarge the moment of peace, to lengthen it so that it lasts longer than before. I am always amazed at the poet’s ability to say so much in so few words, to literally reduce such deep issues to concise symbols. They are truly masters at interpreting the matters of the human race.

About his work, the poet Joseph Brodsky said, "For almost forty years his throbbing and relentless lines kept arriving in the English language like tidal waves, coagulating into an archipelago of poems without which the map of modern literature would effectively match wallpaper. He gives us more than himself or 'a world'; he gives us a sense of infinity embodied in the language."

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/220

Birds Identified in “The Season of Phantasmal Peace”

Osprey Starling

Chough Raven

Killdeer Wild Goose