White, by Charles Simic Charles

White, By Charles Simic

Charles Simic's poem "White" is not an easy poem to understand or explain. It is brilliant and yet maddening because no sooner does the reader believe that he or she is following the path the poet has laid out, then the poet surprises with new images, new pathways of thought that depart from the obvious. Perhaps this poem is the poet's way of showing how to begin over again. It would appear that "White" takes many forms, including the fact that White might be the color of the page that sits in the typewriter, and it would also seem clear White is the state of mind the poet tries to reach when he is putting several smaller poems into the form of a much longer poem. And White is a bride that turns into an animal -- and as the poem moves along White is many things, including an animal

It is also interesting that Simic is saluting that iconic American poet Walt Whitman, who was known to be adept at using a number of shorter poems to create a longer poem, while keeping the tone and theme moving along smoothly. In this poem Simic assumes a number of personalities from a child who is an orphan, to a bridegroom and more.

In the first part of the poem he uses dark ("blindness") and light ("bride") and he is giving just an idea, a request, perhaps to get out of poverty and start anew. "All that is near, I no longer give it a name," he writes; he appears to be unsure of anything other than his pursuit of White. Is he really on a journey or is the journey actually the river of words that make up the poem? "We haven't gone far," he explains, which would seem to say there is no literal journey but just a sense of starting over on a white page with white images and metaphors.

He is looking for the White through words, and then thinks he finds it ("is it a cloud?"); will the stars bring him want he wants? In the Arctic his words are swallowed up by the snow and the White; at the end of the first part, his search is apparently over. Who are those that have bandaged eyes and ears? In line 93 he wants again to touch a white page with the "Five ears of my fingertips"; fingertips mean he wants to touch the white but the fingertips don't hear anything. It is fascinating that so many images of White are part of this poem and yet the search goes on -- which some may believe is a search for the poem, for the right words to help start over. "It has to be cold / So the breath turns white" (137-38) the search for White in this poem has embraced a wedding, a bride, snow, the Arctic, and in the end, the reader can create something White from any one of the images. In lines 225-227, the poet is "…the bullet / that has baptized each one of your senses / Poems are made of our lusty wedding nights." And the poet is the sea into which the reader slowly sinks -- "with arms in the posture of someone drowning." For this paper, the reader is drowning in the possibility that a hundred different images and ideas are presented by Simic that aren't supposed to be fully understood, but instead are to be morsels that require thought and imagination but really don't come clear).

A Landscape with Crutches

It's important to remember that a crutch isn't only a slender piece of wood to give balance to an unsteady person. A crutch is also something used to justify an existence or a decision. In this poem the day struggles to begin (it must be heavily overcast), the smoke has to be justified and workers are not healthy as they walk "…in single file with difficulty…"