Futility, Loss, and Nature in Six Contemporary Poems

Futility and Freedom: Glück's 'Twilight' and Crane's 'Four Poems'

The poem "Twilight" by Louise Glück describes a specific moment in the subject's life — the only point during his day when he can experience any sense of freedom in his otherwise futile existence. This is established in the poem's opening lines: "All day he works at his cousin's mill, / so when he gets home at night, he always sits at this one window, / sees one time of day, twilight." During the day he is a prisoner of his labor, and all he can observe of nature is a window showcasing "a squared-off landscape / representing the world." The word "representing" is significant: Glück implies that the landscape visible through the window merely represents reality rather than being reality itself. It is through this window that the subject can watch the seasons change, but little else marks the passing of time in any meaningful way.

Glück's poem stands in stark contrast to the frenzied activity depicted in Stephen Crane's "Four Poems," which similarly addresses the theme of human futility. Where Crane's poem presents a series of short, dramatic anecdotes — one involving a man chasing the horizon, another showing a man eating his own heart — Glück's meditation on the limits of human existence is quiet and introverted. Her poem offers a more realistic depiction of everyday life, suggesting that when someone works every day he has little time to appreciate nature or the things he values most. Glück's millworker reflects: "There should be more time like this, to sit and dream. / … Living — living takes you away from sitting." Within the framework of everyday reality and modern capitalism, "making a living" crowds out what is truly important: the silent, personal meditation of an individual contemplating nature, free from the pressures of the timeclock. Only when alone can the worker appreciate the changing of the seasons. Even then, the weariness after work can be overwhelming: "At dusk, the sun goes down in a haze of red fire between two poplars. / It goes down late in summer — sometimes it's hard to stay awake."

Symbolism and the Brevity of Life in 'Twilight'

The poem's focus on a specific time of day — twilight — is both literally and metaphorically symbolic. Literally, most people have only a few hours each day to focus on something beyond themselves and to appreciate their place in the larger cosmos. Metaphorically, twilight speaks to the brevity of human existence itself. Twilight is the only time many people truly have to themselves: that liminal moment between wakefulness and sleep. In this way, like Crane's poem, Glück's work is heavily symbolic, though it lacks Crane's outlandish imagery. Glück's sense of the brevity of life's joys also underscores how few hours are genuinely significant before we die. "Then everything falls away. / The world for a little longer / is something to see, then only something to hear," until the man falls asleep. This mirrors human existence more broadly: people live with intensity for only short periods before falling back into sleep — a metaphor, ultimately, for death.

Mid-poem, the focus of Glück's narration undergoes a shift. Although the poem begins with the poet dispassionately describing a man's experience, the poetic "I" suddenly intrudes when Glück writes: "I open my fingers — / I let everything go." This signals her identification with the poetic subject, collapsing the distance she had been trying to maintain. Gradually, "Visual world, language, / rustling of leaves in the night, / smell of high grass, of woodsmoke" all fade. The poet, the millworker, and by extension all of humanity are part of the same brief connection to nature before another day full of cares must begin.

The poem's final line — "I let it go, then I light the candle" — captures this resignation with quiet pathos. When the light of twilight slips away, the speaker is forced to create her own light, since the sun has set. There is sadness here: both the man at the mill and the author have spent the most worthwhile part of the day elsewhere, and that loss is irreversible. Yet the act of lighting a candle carries a note of resolution. Like Crane's horizon-chaser, happiness eludes Glück's narrator — but she is able to philosophically light a candle rather than simply curse the darkness.

Self and Nature as Lists: Harrison's 'I Believe' and Ogden's 'White Pine'

The poem "I Believe" by Jim Harrison has an apparently simple structure — a list — but its carefully selected items are designed both to highlight what the poet values and to challenge the reader's assumptions about class and rural America. Harrison offers a concise and incisive depiction of his world, ranging from saloons and wine to "turbulent rivers, lakes without cottages lost in the woods." This suggests a kind of romantic backwater in which the poet lives a somewhat dangerous life in rural America while remaining deeply appreciative of nature. Through physical, tangible objects, Harrison establishes his sense of self.

A poem that similarly uses striking images in list form is Hugh Ogden's "White Pine After Living A Hundred Years Looking West Across the Lake," in which the poet's description of natural phenomena as seen through the eyes of a tree challenges the reader's anthropocentric assumptions. "Night doesn't fall … but rises. / It gathers / in shadows of rock and stump, / mills under club spruce, fern." The poem unfurls in a long list of where night can be found, conveying a very distinct sense of place, much like "I Believe."