Thursday, April 12, 2012

Bird-Witted

All right, so all of the poems took a while for me to try to wrap my mind around, but the one that I think I was able to wrap my mind around most was "Bird-Witted." If I am analyzing this poem correctly (which it is perfectly possible that I am not), it is about changes in life and how they can happen unexpectedly. Allow me to explain my thinking a bit more clearly: we begin the poem with three mocking-birds that are clearly getting big enough that they should be leaving the nest soon. This is made clear with lines such as: "till they see/their no longer larger/mother bringing/something that will partially/feed one of them," (lines 6 - 10). It is clear that these birds should be leaving the nest, but the tone of the poem does not make it sound as though they plan on doing so any time soon, which seems to be wearing on the mother bird. "What delightful note/with rapid unexpected flute-/sounds leaping from the throat/of the astute/grown bird, comes back to one from/the remote/unenergetic sun-/lit air before/the brood was here? How harsh/the bird's voice has become," (lines 31 - 40). Towards the end of the poem however the cat comes in, introducing a new, unforeseen danger, one that the younger birds don't fully understand, but which the mother bird understands quite well. "since nothing fills/squeaking unfed/mouths, wages deadly combat,/and half kills/with bayonet beak and/cruel wings, the/intellectual cautiously/creeping cat," (lines 53 - 60). Suddenly the birds' worlds have all been changed when this new danger was introduced, even though up to this point the younger birds had not had to worry about anything. Perhaps Moore was trying to tell her readers that no matter how much we try to play it safe in life, there is always a possibility that something could happen to change your reality.

1 comment:

  1. I'm basically with you, though I'm not sure the poem is about "changes in life" generally; I think it might just be about this mother bird and her fledglings. I like how you've parsed this out, but I'm not sure we're invited to read so deeply into this one; in fact, don't you think it rather deflates the poem, trying to assign some greater meaning to it? That's my feeling.

    What do you make of the line "since nothing fills/...mouths, wages deadly combat," or "half kills/ ...the cautiously creeping cat"? The "nothing" really throws me off, partially because I'm not sure how to grammatically read the sentence. I can break it down as far as: "The parent [is] rewarded... since nothing fills, wages, kills, etc." It seems that the "nothing" is performing here, rather than the "parent." But that doesn't make much sense, does it? What do you make of this? I'm stuck.

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