Magic and Crime

Here's another poem from the anthology I complained about whose editor Edward Lucie-Smith has incredibly poor taste but also incredibly cutting passive-aggressive wit. In his entry on Francis Berry (both of whose included selections I quite liked), Lucie-Smith begins the biographical sketch with: "A difficult, uneven and therefore almost by definition neglected poet, Francis Berry is the very opposite of an 'academic' writer, though he teaches English at a university." I can't tell if he's damning with faint praise or praising with faint damnation. 

Hvalsey

Francis Berry

I didn't want to go there, I didn't, I was driven
Denying I wanted to go there, creaking out Damn
To the demons with my boards, rasping out N-o-o
With my ropes, rearing, romping, rattling, driven
South of Iceland (there's the Jökull Glacier), driven
(The horizon is heaving), driven and driving
Kap Farvel around, and up the west coast.


And there I stayed
Four years, and what I saw
- Main things that occurred -
Will now be said.


First, and O last, there was the burning, but we'll leave that.


Now I had carried a woman, and do you know
But this woman with her rambles over three years on the shore
Got married to a Greenlander, and this Greenlander
(It was this, and not the other way round, I am sure)
Was a giant of a man; and they married,
Married in Hvalsey Church, and the church bell tonged
Till my very tall lone mast ached, and the ball tanged
Because of the bitingly pale blue of the sky when they came out,
As though every tooth and nail, and every nerve and tail, of my hulk
Dinned and stung in delight and washed in dismay.
But that was alright.
But what was not alright
Was the burning, and that was my third year
Here.
     I don't like it. Will not like it
Ever.
     Well, they said that this Kolgrim
- Greenlander, yes, but black-browed, mean smile, thick hair -
Practised the Black Arts to get her so
- Get her SO, you understand, the wife of the second
Carpenter (that's all he was, that's all he was
Tinkering me, the said ship).
Well, they got him
For doing the Black Arts, and they did him -


Greenlander though he was, and she only an
Icelander - in this way...


But I can't go on, I must go on,
I am driven.
They got him, this Kolgrim,
and they judged him
Not of Adultery, but of Black Arts
Guilty, and they burnt...


This year, after the marriage spoken of,
Fourth year.


And they burnt. Wood scarce in Greenland. And the bonfire
Attracted. And the sight. Attracted. And the screams
Attracted. Attracted, attracted, attracted, attracted more
More, more, more than the marriage
(And there were many, many were there a year or so
Earlier.)
     And the woman, wife of the second
Carpenter (she wasn't worth it, that you do know),
She went hopping at the burning, and after hopping, mad,
Mad soon after.      
     And leering.     
          And dangerous.


But she died.


     These things I saw
During four years compulsory stay
At Hvalsey (Whale's Island), driven, driven there
Without my knowing, or my will, or my consent,
Anything.
    And now they say
Sheep stray into the roofless church of Hvalsey
And dirty on its altar.




First of all, the voice in this poem is amazing. Our esteemed editor has some snarky remark about in Nordic poems the ship as narrator is a typical conceit. But after rereading it several times, I'm not convinced. The narrator would have us believe he is a ship. But is he a ship? Or the carpenter that's mentioned but never seen? I like both possibilities and resist having to choose just one.


The hints in this poem are incredible - the wood that's so scarce, where did they get it? The planks of the ship? The roof of the church that is now roofless? Neither: time took care of the roof, the ship got away scot-free? 


It's a beautiful piece of narrative that never forgets that it's a poem. Most narrative poems stray, forget that you can't just make the lines rhyme and say your story is now a poem. More and more I realize (and I will of course expound on this at great length further on) that what defines a poem is this: a poem is that which is about more than what it is about. 


You can legitimately ask a novelist, "What's your book about?" But asking a poet what his poem is about is a futile task, sort of like asking an architect what his building is about. It's never about the story really. It's got to be about something more, something deeper, something hidden, some larger, something different. And you don't get to decide what that is because then the game is up.


It's a detective story that's all middle, no introduction or conclusion. There are these variables, sets of possibilities, arrays and permutations into which these pieces can or might conceivably fit. But nobody gets to finger the crook, the mopes don't get caught. The fun doesn't have to end - and isn't the worst part of any mystery the end, the drawing room scene where the perpetrator is called out and the innocent are exculpated?


The delicious pleasure of a mystery novel or a magic trick is in the not knowing. The not knowing is more enjoyable and fun than any answer or solution can ever be. Don't pry too deeply into the top hat, the red herring, the sawed lady, because then you might find out. And then the fun is over.


Except with a poem, you can never pry deeply enough. Worlds within worlds, mysteries within mysteries. The detective continues his investigation, the bunko squad examines the black box to see how it's done, and the fun never stops.