Robert Bly Essay Research Paper Throughout the

Robert Bly Essay, Research Paper

Throughout the 20th century, Robert Bly has provided a wealth of poetry on a

wide variety of topics. Alongside his themes, Robert Bly has also developed

different stylistic methods to convey those thoughts. Such themes vary to this

day, dealing with issues that have personally affected him, and also those of

society in general. His poetry is a time-line pondering solitude, the Vietnam

War, nature, frustration and relationships among all sorts, conveyed not only in

conventional stanzas, but in a form called "prose" poetry as well.

Contributing and inspiring to many, the work of Robert Bly provides an

interesting take on American poetry. Robert Blys’ first collection of poems were

released in 1962, titled, Silence in the Snowy Fields. Divided into three

sections: "Eleven Poems of Solitude," "Awakening," and

"Silence on the Roads," all combine along with the title to explore as

Richard P. Sugg states: "human nature as twofold, consisting of both the

conscious and the unconscious. . ." A poem "Return to Solitude"

explores the conscious and unconscious aspects of human nature, relating a

desire to exist in the purest, solitary state; one of inside the womb.

"Return to solitude" seemingly jumps between the conscious and

unconscious state, all the while conveying a yearning for a more solitary

existence. The first stanza, portrays solitude via the imagery. "It is a

moonlit, windy night. / The moon has pushed out the Milky Way." Envisioning

these two lines invokes a sense of remoteness, a picture of a single, bright

moon in the night sky without any stars. "Clouds are hardly alive, and the

grass leaping. / It is the hour of return." With the clouds hardly alive,

or non-existent, the moon is now explicitly alone in the sky; an obvious image

of solitude. "It is the hour of return" in effect, makes the first

stanza a conscious thought, since it is a statement, a bold declaration that is

consciously put forth. The unconscious comes to play in the second stanza.

"We want to go back, to return to the sea," communicates a sense of

yearning within the speaker, almost as if a true desire were being confessed.

The sea is then described: "The sea of solitary corridors / And halls of

wild nights," whose imagery portrays a birth canal, a corridor and also a

hall where sexual intercourse, hence the "wild nights" would occur.

"Explosions of grief, / Diving into the sea of death," correspond to a

sexual climax, but are understood by the speaker as negative. By these events

occurring, it is creating a person and hence eventually the birth of him/her and

the inevitable loss of the pure, solitary state. Hence the explosive climax is

labeled as grievous and paired with an ominous image of "Diving into the

sea of death." The third stanza ponders what would happen if the pure state

of solitude was ever reached. "What shall we find when we return. / Friends

changed, houses moved, / Trees perhaps, with new leaves." These images give

a sense of a renewed life, a different life with different friends and a

different home, and even perhaps a rejuvenation in one’s self, as conjured by

the new leaves on trees. Robert Bly’s "Return to Solitude" is one of

the many poems within Silence in the Snowy Fields that conveys a dual side to

humanity: the conscious and unconscious, and also explores solitude. Following

Silence in the Snowy Fields came the turbulent Vietnam War, where Robert Bly

took an incredible anti-war stance, seen not only in his poetry but by his

frequent activism in protests and rallies. In 1967, Robert Bly published The

Light Around the Body, a three sectioned collection of poetry that leaped into

current issues. "Asian Peace Offers Rejected without Publication" is

such a poem that portrays a different theme and a different methodology in

bringing it to the surface. "Asian Peace Offers Rejected without

Publication" promotes a realization regarding mankind’s misconception of

war, while making a statement to never forget the atrocities that have already

occurred in the past. "Men like Rusk are not men: / They are bombs waiting

to be loaded in a darkened hangar." Here Rusk and his fellows have lost all

their human qualities, thereby losing the ability to be compassionate and

understanding. The speaker then labels Rusk and his cohorts as bombs, the

embodiment of modern carnage and destruction. "Rusk’s assistants eat

hurriedly, / talking of Teilhard de Chardin," An interesting twist then

takes place, with the speaker introducing the idea that those favoring

destruction, claim to do it under a seemingly noble guise and hence justify it

to themselves. The irony follows

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