An explication of the Lilies Landsford Canal poem

¶ … Lilies of Landsford Canal

Susan Ludvigson is an American literature professor and poet whose professional and personal background feature prominently in her work. In the narrative poem "The Lilies of Landsford Canal," Ludvigson describes her first impressions upon visiting the renowned lily fields at the Landsford Canal in her home state of South Carolina. Through her narrative, a series of literary devices are utilized to demonstrate her first reactions upon visiting the lily fields. The literary devices used by Ludvigson include imagery, allusion, personification, and simile.

Ludvigson opens her narrative by establishing where the lilies at Lansford Canal are located and the location's proximity to her residence. Ludvigson uses imagery to describe the narrator's initial journey to the canal. By stating, "Twenty years I've lived/so near a miracle/it's possible to bicycle there," the reader is made to understand that the narrator should have a good grasp of the geography and her connection to the canal. Imagery is used to infuse the poem with humor as the narrator describes why he or she does not bicycle to the lily fields, "so out of shape a walk up a long hill leaves me breathless," however, the narrator quickly asserts that he or she has other means of getting to the lilies by stating, "In canoes we navigate the stony shoals, / shores and islands green/as a long remembered dream." By describing the "stony shoals" and green shores and islands as a dream, the narrator asserts the peaceful nature of the canal. Furthermore, this imagery allows the reader to imagine himself or herself at the Lansford Canal, as a passenger in the narrator's canoe.

Through the narrator's description, the reader is quickly led to believe that this is the narrator's first journey to seek out the lilies as it appears as though they are initially disappointed by lack of lilies where they had expected them to be. From this disappointment, the narrator transitions into a combination of literary devices that brings together allusion and imagery. Allusion is used to define the narrator's expectations of the lilies they would see on her journey. The narrator alludes to Monet's famous lily paintings, expecting that the reader comprehends what they is referring to. This allusion quickly transitions into a description of how they has imagined the lilies -- and how they interprets the lilies found in Monet's paintings. The narrator contends that lilies "[float] flat at the edge of a river/under the shadow of willows bending/to riffle the water." However, they does not see lilies, but rather encounters "A few clumps of tall grasses/[with] stalks with possible buds, or maybe/they're the stubble of flowers now blown/by the wind toward shore." A reference to time is also give through this imagery as it is established that lily sighting is a seasonal occurrence. By establishing the possibility that the "tall grasses" and "stubble" are all that remain of the lilies, the narrator conveys the contention that they and her companions have arrived too late to see lilies. However, since the narrator continues his or her canoe trip they soon comes to realize that they has not missed lily season, but rather anticipated their appearance and was looking for the lilies in the wrong location.

The poem transitions from the combination of allusion and imagery to a combination of personifications, simile, and imagery as the narrator begins to describe the lily fields that they has finally reached. Through imagery and personification, the narrator is able to describe how they was impacted and impressed by the lilies. The gloriousness of the lilies is compared to a choir, "swaying in a rhythm to the moving water." The personification continues as they attributes human qualities to the lilies by stating that the lilies "are singing hosannas, a music/so ecstatic and silent it has to be white." Through this description, the narrator alludes to the reader that they senses the lilies' color to be the purest of whites and that appear to instill in her a feeling of serenity and peace. The lilies can also be said to give the narrator a sense of comfort, or make her feel safe, as a person who is seeking sanctuary in a holy place would feel.

Personification is also used to describe how many lilies the narrator sees. The narrator contends, "Whole islands are massed with them, long stems and dark/embracing leaves like French genets." The manner in which the narrator describes the large quantities of flowers and compares them to wild cats insinuates that the lilies' cannot be contained and that they have spread across the land like a wild animal that does not know its boundaries. A paradox arises as the narrator compares the flowers to a wild animal yet maintains, "the delicate spiked white blossoms are enormous and complex." The paradox arises once again with the juxtaposition of descriptors such as "spiked," "enormous," and "complex," with how fragile they "shine against/the skittering silver water/against the trembling wall of green behind/against the stones rising up." Despite the flowers' perceived fragility, the narrator maintains that they are wild, timeless, and perpetual, yet are also contained. "They grow wild/in just a few places in the world./A thousand years old, against the odds, they repeat themselves year after year." Additionally, the narrator maintains that the lilies grow like this because it is in their nature, instinctual, "like swallows or salmon returning home."

The third section of the poem shifts the attention back to the narrator and the divide that he or she perceives between themselves and the natural world. While the narrator continues his or her journey, and "Even when we're past/that shimmer, the Catawba wider/and smoother than before, the air is fragrant as a childhood summer." Although the narrator contends that the lilies and nature's scent permeates the air, he or she knows that the world of man has infiltrated the lilies' world. The narrator appears to lament this unnatural intrusion and comments, "Surely there is no more innocence here than anywhere./Downstream, I'm told, the river is polluted by chemicals," which may undoubtedly one day impact and destroy the lily fields that the narrator has come to admire and love. Yet, the narrator refuses to let the illusion of nature and purity become tainted by this knowledge and feels "as if I'm entering something pure,/some place not wholly exterior."