[New-Poetry] Poems by Others: Robinson Jeffers

[Suzanne Burns]

On 1/5/07, Jeff Newberry <jeff.newberry at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Jim Finnegan said: "It's not the ocean but that big brain in the bone
> vault that makes beauty."
>
> Perhaps, but that's not what Jeffers believed.  Good point, though.
>


I am not so sure that he would disagree necessarily-- I think he might agree
that "beauty" is a concept that humans have developed  and applied to things
they find aesthetically pleasing, and that the concept is objectively
irrelevant to the thing itself, and probably an imposition.

The ocean is simply itself.  The rat, the hawk, the cobra are simply what
they are, and their beauty and vitality belongs completely to themselves--
what they are *to us* is just not important.

I think he would also add that they are   worthier than we are because they
have done less harm, and that we should take ourselves and our concepts of
beauty and perfection on a long walk off a short pier. After all where have
our desires and tastes taken this planet?  How do we reconcile our longing
for beauty as we look at the ocean with the fact that the Pacific has a big
raft of plastic garbage floating around in it because of our consumer-driven
(i.e., desire-driven) wastefulness?

Of course this is all just hair splitting.  I just love Jeffers.

Another fine environmental poet to read is W.S. Merwin of course.  I should
dig up his poem about the pineapples.


Suzanne Burns
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