I really don’t know where to begin with H.D., so I will
begin with a cliché. She is a force. In “Oread,” she demonstrates the dizzying power
of language to dissolve the boundaries between land and sea (and perhaps even
the Oread’s consciousness). In six lines, the poem itself embodies its own
command, as the typical images for one entity (the “pointed pines” and “green
fir” of the forest) describe another in the sea she is addressing. In “Eurydice”,
she employs the same force on a larger scale, re-telling the story of Eurydice from
the perspective of Orpheus’ wife. In Greek myth, Orpheus is allowed to go into
the underworld to bring his dead wife, Eurydice, back into the world of the
living. He is charged not look back at her as he leads her back to earth, but
he does, causing her to fall back down into Hades forever.
Toward the end of H.D.’s poem, the speaker reminded me of
that creepy part in Lord of the Ring when the Elf lady almost takes the ring
from Frodo… her hair all of a sudden starts blowing back from a mysterious gust
of wind and her voice changes into this evil bellowing… anyway, that’s kind of
what I pictured when she says: “Against the black / I have more fervour / than
you in all the splendour of that place, / against the blackness / and the stark
grey / I have more light.”
Ocean Vuong’s “Eurydice” was more a subtle spin on the old
myth. By subtle, I mean it was almost quiet in its power. It was also creepy,
but in a different way. The image it brought to mind was of a graveyard in the
middle of a field. It’s winter (“frosted grass”), and it’s just before sunset,
when the sky is sort of light and dark at the same time. I read the poem a few
times, and every time I noticed something new. Like this: “Depending on where
you stand / his name can appear like moonlight / shredded
in a dead dog’s fur.” This one made me do a double take, and after that I was
just shaking my head at how disturbingly awesome that image was. But this sound-image
struck me instantly: “My voice cracking / like bones inside the radio.” Bones
inside the radio… I’m a sucker for strange metaphors. His poem did not disappoint.
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