Tshcinag and Groddeck

Tshcinag and Groddeck

What drew me to the poem? I am always curious and fascinated at poetic mysteries. That is, what is the poet really talking about? What line or lines offers a clue (or clues) to the purpose of the poem? The post itself is somewhat confusing and even vague. "The only thing that comes to mind is that it's about abuse between a father and a boy," the post explains. I will try to evaluate and critique the post along with the poem.

The post offers some interesting approaches to understanding the poem. But while I agree that the father apparently doesn't know what the boy is thinking or seeing, and doesn't really relate to the boy's feelings, I don't immediately relate to the assertion that the father is the abuser. I'm not saying it isn't possible that the father is the abuser but when the father says, "Come now, or seize you is what I'll do," that is a possible opening to abuse.

The statement in the blog that poems "…need to have a souls and a spirit," and that poems need to "reflect some sort of daemon [sic] that is inside a person, something that a person sees around them…" is to be something of a reach. Why would a poem necessarily reflect a demon inside people? Certainly there are such poems, but in this case there is too much mystery involved to be sure of anything.

That having been said, it would appear that the boy sees what his father doesn't or won't see. First the "Invisible King with ermine and staff"; an ermine is a kind of weasel, and why would he have a staff? Moreover, how can the boy see a weasel when he is hiding his face? Or did the boy see something and to lessen the shock and the fear, he hid his face?

Is the line, "the terrified father rides wilder and wilder" an indication doesn't necessarily portend that the father will hurt the boy? I'm not sure about that.

Let's say the boy is hallucinating, which he may be. If so he is terrified. He sees a king and a weasel but his father just sees a "rolling mist." Is his father in denial? Is the boy seeing phantoms and trying to alert his father?

The post notes that according to Bly, human reactions to extreme environments are compelling themes in poems. Of course they are. And in fact the poet in this instance may be grabbing the attention of the reader by portraying a father and son scene as they ride late at night on a horse? The father is supporting the boy on this journey, keeping him warm so they can arrive at the shoreline and see shirts "all golden and fine." What's to be made of that image?

And moreover, the impression is given that they are riding fast, so how would the boy be able to hear "dry oak leaves" rustling in the wind? The blog post is right that the father seems to be impatient with each request and remark from the son. There is energy in the words with reference to impatience and a lack of communication.

The father doesn't see, the father doesn't hear, anything the boy is seeing and hearing. That simply denotes that they are not in communication with one another. The post seems to drift into references from other poetry rather than trying to determine exactly what this poem is attempting to convey.