However, behind this calm and ease, is another emotion that Wrigley portrays. It is subtle, yet winds through the poem, so the reader knows that there is some kind of problem, challenge of violence that the man (and the outside world) is facing. Just the title, itself, foreshadows this. Who wants to listen to "news" these days? Is there anything positive and uplifting on CNN or in the papers? The poem explains it as the bird's frantic chirping and the line "even peace seemed possible."
What makes this so effective is the juxtaposition. In one case, is mankind en masse waging war and killing one another. Yet, in another situation, one man, stands alone, helping free and save the life of a gentle bird. Is this supposed to be optimistic? That the power of one can perhaps undo the damage of many? Or is it pessimistic? No matter what one man does, as a group humans will destroy each other? Here is the paradox and irony: This man is living 100 miles from the nearest city to be part of nature and escape this negative news, but still cannot get away from the destruction.
Another aspect of this poem, its "inspiration," is the figurative language. The words fly off the page like the bird. The descriptions and corresponding images are so clear: "the dead singer's voice tanged by smokes and too much gin," "its body pulsed with breath, its wings spread across my palm, its eyelash legs," and "stroked it as lightly as I could, as I might not my lover's breast."
Rather than rhyme, Wrigley uses a natural rhythm that goes well with the jazz music by such blues singers as Billie Holiday. It is melodic with different paces, given the varying number syllables in the lines....
Although there is not exact alliteration, the words move and wave together, such as the metaphors "the static, a kind of extra-tempo air-drum percussion," and "its eyelash / legs sprawled left and right, indecorously."
Mood is very important in this poem. It combines sound or lack of it (music and chirping and silence of the outdoors), vision (the bird flying in the garage, the man bending down and cupping the bird in his hand, the bird flying free), and touch (the stroking of the bird's soft down).
From a personal standpoint, this poem is effective, because I, too, try to break away from all the negative stories. Too often, it becomes too overwhelming. How many articles can one read about local soldiers dying in Iraq and children being molested by their teachers or shooting each other? The worst case is that one becomes numb to such stories, because so many are heard. They no longer stir any emotion or caring.
The man in the poem is trying to find a middle ground. He is attempting to escape into nature and away from the middle of a town or city where road rage threatens, depression and antidepressant increase, car horns blare, and gun shots blare. However, the radio, one of his concessions, keeps him in the midst of the violence with its news. And, ironically, even in the calm and beauty of nature, potential harm strikes, like the bird being trapped and frantically searching for a way out into the light. Violence cannot be left behind.
Interview with Robert Wrigley. Fugue. University of Idaho. Retrieved January 12, 2007 http://www.uidaho.edu/fugue/robert_wrigley.htm.
Wrigley, R. (2006). Earthly Meditation. New York: Penguin Books.
