Just gotta say, I do so enjoy e.e. cummings.

Saffron, I gotta say, me too, I never tire of ee cummings. He certainly has a way of putting things.

So Micucu, the Burglar of Babylon, the making of a folk hero or a sad ballad of a common criminal who got what he deserved in the end? The ballad seems so appropriate as a means to create folk heroes or to celebrate them. I really like a good ballad set to song, especially a good Bob Dylan ballad.

So Micucu, the Burglar of Babylon, the making of a folk hero or a sad ballad of a common criminal who got what he deserved in the end?

Another reading might be that of a tragedy fueled by poverty and injustice.

I found Axel Nesme's essay persuasive on a number of points. (See the link in my reply, above.) Nesme urges that one of the integral steps to reading the poem (beyond reader response) may be to see the establishment of separate points of view.

In this case, we can identify a narrator, an audience (including the rich people of Rio watching through their binoculars) Micuçu, himself, and the reader. According to Nesme, Bishop's goal is to align the reader's view with her own--or to cause us to "see as she sees."

One of her techniques is to establish disparate views, and then to merge them into one.

Nesme argues that the idea of Micuçu as a murderer is undercut by the line "They don't know how many he murdered / (Though they say he never raped)." If you can't actually quantify these supposed acts, maybe the number is zero. I would add that the poet weighs in by entitling the work the Burglar--rather than the murderer--of Babylon.

So, the label of "killer" is brought into doubt. Was he ever found gulity of murder? Or is this just something "they" attribute--perhaps even project onto--him. If a reader isn't prepared to embrace the falibility of legal systems, and the tendency to criminalize the poor, this may not be as evident, but it is entirely in keeping with Bishop's politics.

Farther on we are told that "he wasn't much of a burglar." The nonfatal injuries that he caused in the process of escape could be seen as accidental, or--depending on how one's ideology leans--even self-defensive. The cumulative effect may leave Micuçu somewhat short of Jean Valjean but pulls him away from the likes of Jack the Ripper. He's a bit of a rough character, but perhaps not beyond the bounds of human compassion.

In any event, Bishop is sympathetic to her subject, further humanizing him as a loving family member. He achieves a level of nobility in his preference for brief liberty, albeit at the price of death, over long years of imprisonment. His awareness of his doom, his meditations on the hill, his game rebuke of the buzzard are all elements that can allow the reader to root for Micuçu, in spite of the official state view of him.

I won't belabor this response with too much detail, but there is a sinuous satirical refrain running through these stanzas which mocks church, state and social class (both the voyeuristic rich and the failed consciousness of some poor). Bishop wants us to feel the plight of the poor, and the broken nature of the social contract. That Micuçu looks out for the military police pursuing him from the same hillside used in the past to watch for the invading French, alludes to the theme of class warfare.

All deaths in the narrative occur at the hands of the military, and we see that the soldiers are out again, the next day, hunting more--and even "less dangerous"--quarry.

I appreciated Nesme's essay for pointing out how Bishop moves from the distance of simile to the integration of metaphor in her effort for unification of view, and for apprising me of the fact that Micuçu means snake, which fuels Bishop's inversion of the traditional symbolic use of that creature as the free but doomed refugee "hid in the grasses / or sat in a little tree." I also appreciated his insight into Bishop's application of Lacan's psycho-linguistic philosophies. These layers aren't entirely necessary to an appreciation of the poem, but I found them agreeable, all the same.

I do enjoy language that reaches off the page and "does things" to the reader. Although our audacious editors are rascals in asserting that being selected for this anthology (by their own rarified hands) is the only commendation these poems require, I'm guessing they like that, too.

On the other hand, I wonder if the poem is effective with readers who are not already open to Bishop's point of view.

Both Heaney and Hughes are cut from close cloth, in the matter of poetic style. Both grew under the influence of Philip Hobsbaum and favor a descriptive poetic aesthetic (indeed, Heaney's worst critics consider him "merely descriptive.") Bishop's ballad is an effective (slightly embellished) retelling of a situation she personally observed, which fits the bill. Heaney is on record as approving of her ability to keep her artistic efforts from interfereing with the "hard realities" of her subjects.

There are plentiful portions of artistry and hard reality in The Burglar of Babylon. The "fearful stain" on "the green hills of Rio" strikes me at once as the attitude of the wealthier residents toward the poor, an indictment of the then-prevailing social ideology, and the blood oozing from Micuçu's head.

I enjoyed this poem, which was new to me, though I don't know that it would make a list of my all-time favorites. But then, I suppose that would depend on how thick a book I was compiling.

I just had an anxious couple of days.....but now I've got a new grandson......

I'm a trifle distracted....but I'll be back soon.

Wow, thanks DireCari for both the link to the essay and your own essay on The Burglar of Babylon. It is interesting how Elizabeth Bishop tries to win us over to her own point of view.

now, for a bit of a typing lesson:

The Buffalo Skinners

Come all you jolly cowboys and listen to my song,
There are not many verses, it will not detain you long;
It's concerning some young fellows who did agree to go
And spend one summer pleasantly on the range of the buffalo.

It happened in Jacksboro in the spring of seventy-three,
A man by the name of Crego came stepping up to me,
Saying, 'How do you do young fellow, and how would you like to go
And spend one summer pleasantly on the range of the buffalo?

"I will pay good wages and transportation too,
Provided you will go with me and stay the summer through;
But if you should grow homesick, come back to Jacksboro,
I won't pay you transportation from the range of the buffalo."

It's now our outfit was complete-seven able bodied men,
With navy six and needle gun-our troubles did begin;
Our way it was a pleasant one, the route we had to go,
Until we crossed Pease River on the range of the buffalo.

It's now we've crossed Pease River, our troubles have begun.
The first damned tail I went to rip, Christ! how I cut my thumb!
While skinning the damned old stinkers our lives wasn't a show,
For the Indians watched to pick us off while skinning the buffalo.

He fed us on such sorry chuck I wished myself most dead,
It was old jerked beef, croton coffee, and sour bread.
Pease River's as salty as hell fire, the water I could never go-
Oh God! I wished I had never come to the range of the buffalo.

Our meat it was buffalo rump and iron wedge bread,
And all we had to sleep on was a buffalo robe for a bed;
The fleas and graybacks worked on us, O boys it was not slow,
I'll tell you there's no worse hell on earth than

Our hearts were cased with buffalo hocks, our souls were cased with steel,
And the hardships of that summer would nearly make us reel.
While skinning the damned old stinkers our lives they had no show,
For the Indians waited to pick us off on the hills of Mexico.

The season being near over, old Crego he did say
The crowd had been extravagant, was in debt to him that day,
We coaxed him and we begged him and still it was no go-
We left old Crego's bones to bleach on the range of the buffalo.

Oh, it's now we've crossed Pease River and homeward we are bound,
No more in that hell-fired country shall ever we be found.
Go home to our wives and sweethearts, tell others not to go,
For God's forsaken the buffalo range and the damned old buffalo.
Anon

I can't figure out how to get into the Shout Out box, and I'm too new to pm, so I guess I'll sneak my congrats to Penny in here.

Re froglipz: It is interesting how Elizabeth Bishop tries to win us over to her own point of view.

"Interesting" is the best way to describe it. At least speaking for myself. I enjoy the linguistic technicalities, but that doesn't make me love the poem. :03:

I have to admit that more than a few of the Hughes/Heaney selections leave me saying...."eh."

But I'm using this as an opportunity to take a closer look at pieces I would probably pass over, left to my own ruminations.

I also notice that I take too much time to respond...so I may sneak ahead and read the D poems, to prepare comments for when they come up.

I may also sneak back in when the thread completes, to add a few comments on poems past.

If you don't see a post, you can be sure that I'm off somewhere thinking about one.

I'm glad I've found this site, this forum, and this discussion.

DireCari wrote:I can't figure out how to get into the Shout Out box, and I'm too new to pm, so I guess I'll sneak my congrats to Penny in here.

First let me say, welcome and glad to have you on the poetry forum! If you cannot just type in the Shout Box it could be that your taking too long. If I just type a few words and send I am fine, but if I linger or make any correction while typing it will not send. It seems I time out in some way. Sometimes what I do is type what I want to say, copy and paste it in and hit the send button. It works every time. Also, do feel free to go back over the threads and make posts about poems previously posted. Sometimes it will get a new discussion going.