Response to Alina Kwiatowska
I suppose one should be flattered to
have one’s poetry analyzed. This is the case with my “Bedroom in Arles”
ekphrastic poem, which is given a few paragraphs of response by Polish
linguistics professor Alina Kwiatowska in the book Cognitive Grammar in Literature, edited by Chloe Harrison, Louise Nuttall, Peter Stockwell, and Wenjuan Yuan (Amsterdam/Philadelphia:
John Benjamens Publishing, 2014). In Kwiatowska’s chapter, “Representing the
Represented: Verbal Variations on Vincent’s
Bedroom in Arles,” her observations appear on pages 225 and 226. I present the
text here to offer comments in response.
Michael Dylan Welch: ‘Bedroom in Arles’ The poem by Michael Dylan Welch (2012) is another whose first-person narrator
(presumably identical with the author) is convinced he knows what could have
made van Gogh happy.
This time he is not addressing the
painter, but rather putting himself onstage, pushing van Gogh to the side, but
inviting a comparison, leaving the judgement to the implied reader. Not
surprisingly, this ego-centric poem with an objectively construed narrator
begins with the description of the latter’s own bedroom, zooming in on the items
that have to do with books and reading. The first two lines suggest the poet’s
elation and contentment with their role in his life:
My bedside books are
dreams to drink,
paths to lap up,
absinthe to imbibe.
I have reading
glasses now,
and tall stacks of
books seem as rickety as me,
till a new bookcase
finds room in the house.
Having proclaimed his happiness with his way of life, he then points out the
lack of books in van Gogh’s bedroom—and so presumably in his life—taking pity
on the artist, and suggesting that this lack was instrumental in his
depression: ‘Even a bullet to the chest / cannot end / such bookless, dreamless
sadness.’ However, the purpose of the poem is not only to declare the superiority
of the lifestyle choices of this particular author over those of the famous
painter; it also, perhaps primarily, declares the superiority of word over
image: books are claimed to be opening new prospects (‘words / show me the road
where I will go’), while the painter’s only ‘dreams / may be the colours in
paintings / hung carelessly on vivid walls, / yet the window stays closed / to
tomorrow.’
I’m not
sure that the poem asserts any conviction that I would “know” what could have
made the painter happy, but any poem is open, of course, to interpretation. My
poem is in three parts. The first part is autobiographical—or readers can take
it as such. The second part describes the scene in the painting, which we know
from history, and the title of the painting, is van Gogh’s bedroom. And the
third part is deliberately separate to provoke an ambiguity as to whether it’s
about me (connecting to the first part of the poem), about van Gogh (connecting
to the second part), or perhaps both. But the reference to the bullet to the
chest—and the fact that my own life isn’t bookless—should make it clear that I’m
talking about the painter. But is van Gogh really dreamless, as the final line
of my poem suggests? I would say no. I compare books to dreams (that is, having
hopes and desires for the future), and thus one could say that I privilege the
word over the image, but any person may choose to do that, whether he or she is
a writer or not. Or one may choose the opposite—it’s simply a personal choice.
Perhaps I suggest that books could have made the poet happier—as they have made
me happier—but this is offered as a speculation, not as something I know. In the poem’s second part I
speculate—for that is what ekphrastic poetry can do, and often does—that van
Gogh’s bedroom is dreamless. But then I say that it isn’t dreamless—“its only
dreams / may be the colours in paintings.” I say that the “window stays closed /
to tomorrow” (that is, resisting the hope of a brighter day) because van Gogh
chose to end his life. Where, in all of this, do I say that I know what could have made the poet
happier? Rather, I’m saying what has made me
happy. It
seems that additional language in Alina Kwiatowska’s response is loaded,
such as saying that I’m “convinced” I know what could have made van Gogh
happier, that I’ve written an “ego-centric poem” in which I’ve “proclaimed” my
happiness and “take pity on the artist.” Likewise, I seem to be decried for “putting
[myself] onstage” and “pushing van Gogh to the side.” Hardly at all. I’m
writing about both of us, inspired by
van Gogh’s painting of his bedroom to contemplate my own bedroom. And isn’t it
ego-centric of van Gogh to paint a picture of his bedroom? In any case, the
poem ends with a focus on van Gogh, so he’s hardly pushed aside. And then Kwiatowska
says I’m apparently declaring my superiority to the painter’s life. Indeed, how
can Kwiatowska herself know that the “purpose”
of my poem is to declare the superiority of my lifestyle choices (that is, to
read a lot of books)? As Emily Dickinson wrote, “There
is no frigate like a book”—and what more than a book to sail away on in pursuit
of one’s dreams? Indeed, books have been a blessing to me, and perhaps they
could have been more of a blessing to van Gogh, but that isn’t my point. My
point is that something may well have been missing in van Gogh’s life—missing enough
that he chose to end his life. Just as his window is literally closed in the
painting, his window is figuratively closed in his life, with no anticipation
for the future. I am fortunate that I have books (among many other blessings)
that help me feel fulfilled. However, I don’t mean simply that books could have helped van Gogh, but
that he needed something to fulfill
him, if painting wasn’t doing it. I am no expert on the biography of van Gogh,
nor have I studied his psychological motivations for suicide, but books serve
as a metaphor for what might have
been missing in the painter’s life. Ultimately, the nature of an ekphrastic
poem is that it does not have to limit itself to describing the painting or another
kind of art. Rather, in its modern incarnation, ekphrasis can be any poem (or
other piece of writing) written in response
to another piece of art. To my mind this response can take any direction, any
form, any tone. It can be literal, imaginative, whatever the poet wants. In my
case, I took to comparing my own bedroom to van Gogh’s, and offered gratitude
for the books I have in my life, regardless of whether van Gogh had them in his.
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