Of Politics & Art - Blog Post 5

Of Politics & Art

Norman Dubie

Here, on the farthest point of the peninsula
The winter storm
Off the Atlantic shook the schoolhouse.
Mrs. Whitimore, dying
Of tuberculosis, said it would be after dark
Before the snowplow and bus would reach us.

She read to us from Melville.

How in an almost calamitous moment
Of sea hunting
Some men in an open boat suddenly found themselves
At the still and protected center
Of a great herd of whales
Where all the females floated on their sides
While their young nursed there. The cold frightened whalers
Just stared into what they allowed
Was the ecstatic lapidary pond of a nursing cow's
One visible eyeball.
And they were at peace with themselves.

Today I listened to a woman say
That Melville might
Be taught in the next decade. Another woman asked, "And why not?"
The first responded, "Because there are
No women in his one novel."

And Mrs. Whitimore was now reading from the Psalms.
Coughing into her handkerchief. Snow above the windows.
There was a blue light on her face, breasts, and arms.
Sometimes a whole civilization can be dying
Peacefully in one young woman, in a small heated room
With thirty children
Rapt, confident and listening to the pure
God-rendering voice of a storm.

The point of view in this poem comes from a person in a schoolhouse during a winter storm listening to an older woman read them a story from Melville in order to keep their minds off of the storm.  What is excluded is who the person is because they are just observing what is going on around them.  However, I do believe this is the eyes of a child because usually one listens to stories read aloud when they are children and it also mentions that there are thirty children in the schoolhouse and the speaker is probably one of those children.  The speaker focuses on Mrs. Whitimore and then the next stanza goes to the imagination of the the speaker and how they interpret the story from Melville.  Then it goes to some other women in the room talking and then back to Mrs. Whitimore.  Because there is a winter storm on the peninsula, I believe they are in Eastern Canada such as Newfoundland or Western Europe.  I think the author uses this perspective because children actually notice the little things around them a lot more than older people do and I think they have a detailed picture of settings and environments than any other age group.  The author can use this perspective to really go into detail on the very subtle things on why they are the way they are around the room and in the storm.

I do not consider this poem to be an elegy because although it talks about Mrs. Whitimore dying of tuberculosis, it does not mourn over her death (we don't even know if she did die).  It more talks about the feelings the speaker has in the snow storm and from the story from Melville.  

I also like the enjambment in some of the important lines in the poem: "Mrs. Whitimore, dying" is an important line because it sets to tone of what a dying person feels like during a crisis situation.  There are a lot of three word enjambment lines in this poem such as "Of sea hunting", "One visible eyeball" and "With thirty children".  This makes the reader know that these lines are important and have a reason to why they were added into the poem in the first place.

I also want to touch on the tone of the poem.  First of all, these people are in a scary situation.  In a winter storm, stuck inside of school house, power might be going out, food might be an issue and there is a woman dying of tuberculosis in the room.  The crazy thing is, no one is panicking and it sounds like they all are having a comfortable time in the room reading stories.  This is partly because the author uses smooth language but it also because the author chooses not to put those people in that mindset and it is a nice contrast of environments inside and outside.