It is an accepted tenet in poetry circles today that each poem must be self-contained; the inclusion of notes or other background information is widely considered tacky. In Ultima Thule, however, poet Davis McCombs creates a delicate and sophisticated novel-in-verse by breaking the rule that says poems should be unnoted and self-contained.
We previously discussed how in The Descent of Alette, Louise in Love and Fredy Neptune nothing is explained prior to their first line of poetry. Now let us look at a book in which the other road is taken. In his Yale Series of Younger Poets winning book, Ultima Thule, , Davis McCombs seems intent upon giving the reader adequate background knowledge before letting them see the first poem. With good reason, as the first poem, “Candlewriting,” seems nicely composed but tepid when read “clean”:
I remember the wind and how the sounds
it carried were my name, meant me, Stephen…
called out over the cornfield where I hid.
there was no sound when candlesmoke
met limestone – just this: seven characters
I learned to write with a taper on a stick. (1)
At first reading one might picture a contemporary youth, hiding from his mother in the fields near his home, and graffitiing his name on the walls of a nearby cave. Upon returning to the front material of the book, however, which includes a lengthy forward, a brief biography of the main character, a list of sources, and an 1845 map of Stephen Bishop’s explorations into Mammoth Caves, one rereads the poem with more appreciation.
The main speaker throughout the book is the mapmaker and explorer Stephen Bishop, who lived from about 1820 to 1847. He was the slave of Dr. John Croghan, owner of Mammoth Caves for a decade prior to the American Civil War. For his explorations of the cave complex Bishop enjoyed world-wide fame through newspaper articles and books. (2)
Given this new information one understands that the person calling out to the boy across the cornfield was not necessarily his mother, but the Doctor or perhaps a member of the household staff. The sound of his name carrying out across the sheltering cornfield suddenly takes on a different tenor. With the timeline adjusted, we have to acknowledge a wild and frontier-style Kentucky, which would have only been a state for about 18 years at the time of Bishop’s birth.
Wealthy guests paid Bishop to guide them through the caverns. The forward tells us that Bishop learned to write by smoking their names into ceilings of the cave. Readers can no longer imagine a bored boy smudging his own name on a wall.
Social and legal status, economic status, and a host of other issues are just as much a part of this poem as the poetry itself. Instead of trying to weave these things into the text, McCombs elected to supply preparatory information in the front material of the book. Without having to weight the introductory poems with information, he was free to write a far more delicate and suggestive first poem than would have been possible otherwise.
Exercise: Write four lines about a historical figure of your choice, including as much information on their life as you can. Write four lines about the same person, assuming your reader already knows all the important facts of the historical figure’s life. What do you include in the poem when the data are omitted?
We previously discussed how in The Descent of Alette, Louise in Love and Fredy Neptune nothing is explained prior to their first line of poetry. Now let us look at a book in which the other road is taken. In his Yale Series of Younger Poets winning book, Ultima Thule, , Davis McCombs seems intent upon giving the reader adequate background knowledge before letting them see the first poem. With good reason, as the first poem, “Candlewriting,” seems nicely composed but tepid when read “clean”:
I remember the wind and how the sounds
it carried were my name, meant me, Stephen…
called out over the cornfield where I hid.
there was no sound when candlesmoke
met limestone – just this: seven characters
I learned to write with a taper on a stick. (1)
At first reading one might picture a contemporary youth, hiding from his mother in the fields near his home, and graffitiing his name on the walls of a nearby cave. Upon returning to the front material of the book, however, which includes a lengthy forward, a brief biography of the main character, a list of sources, and an 1845 map of Stephen Bishop’s explorations into Mammoth Caves, one rereads the poem with more appreciation.
The main speaker throughout the book is the mapmaker and explorer Stephen Bishop, who lived from about 1820 to 1847. He was the slave of Dr. John Croghan, owner of Mammoth Caves for a decade prior to the American Civil War. For his explorations of the cave complex Bishop enjoyed world-wide fame through newspaper articles and books. (2)
Given this new information one understands that the person calling out to the boy across the cornfield was not necessarily his mother, but the Doctor or perhaps a member of the household staff. The sound of his name carrying out across the sheltering cornfield suddenly takes on a different tenor. With the timeline adjusted, we have to acknowledge a wild and frontier-style Kentucky, which would have only been a state for about 18 years at the time of Bishop’s birth.
Wealthy guests paid Bishop to guide them through the caverns. The forward tells us that Bishop learned to write by smoking their names into ceilings of the cave. Readers can no longer imagine a bored boy smudging his own name on a wall.
Social and legal status, economic status, and a host of other issues are just as much a part of this poem as the poetry itself. Instead of trying to weave these things into the text, McCombs elected to supply preparatory information in the front material of the book. Without having to weight the introductory poems with information, he was free to write a far more delicate and suggestive first poem than would have been possible otherwise.
Exercise: Write four lines about a historical figure of your choice, including as much information on their life as you can. Write four lines about the same person, assuming your reader already knows all the important facts of the historical figure’s life. What do you include in the poem when the data are omitted?
- McCombs, Davis.Ultima Thule.Yale University Press. 2000. p.3. ibid., x.
