Contemporary Poetry

: a web symposium  |  Spring 2006

The Keep by Emily Wilson
University of Iowa Press, 2001

Emily Wilson’s debut book of poetry speaks to emotions keenly felt but often apparently inexpressible. Her poetry does not tell stories or offer explanations for human emotion or events. Rather, Wilson’s words, like abstract art, evoke emotion associated with the scenes she presents. Using the page as her canvas, Wilson creates in the reader an understanding of her meaning with nature imagery that seems to capture the down-to-earth universality of her statement. She compartmentalizes the ephemeral and makes it comprehendible, illustrating it in earthy tones. Wilson’s focus on transient, indefinable emotions is not a broad one, however. She is a poet with a project. The title of Wilson’s book, The Keep, is strikingly appropriate. Her poetry deals with the illusory nature of safety and commitment, particularly in the forms of love and submission to a higher entity. A “keep” may be a place of safekeeping, but it may also be a prison. Wilson considers the tendency of human nature to move away from the safety and security of submission to a higher entity in which meaning may be found in favor of “branching out” and seeking independence. Wilson’s work deals predominantly with contradiction, as she strives to demonstrate the dilemma of safe loneliness versus precarious commitment to a relationship or cause as a common theme in human lives.

The Keep is divided into five sections, each containing poems of a different structure and with different goals. The first section consists of unrelated poems, the majority of which are about a page in length, and several of which are dedications. The second section consists solely of a single poem entitled “Radical Field, which is divided into thirteen short sections. A collection of lengthier poems comprises the third section, entitled “Winter Journal.” The fourth section is composed of the poem “Ontogeny” which, like “Radical Field,” is divided into a collection of shorter segments, and the fifth section contains the sectioned “Eve Pieces,” in addition to the title poem of the book, “The Keep,” and several other shorter poems. Wilson’s organization of the book is significant to her project, as its progression of ideas facilitates her illustration of her theme of the dualistic nature of “the keep.” As the sections progress, the focus on her central theme intensifies.

In the first section of The Keep, Wilson’s poems are, toward the beginning of the section, beautiful and haunting descriptions of a forest. However, they move toward a bleak winter setting and heavier themes as the work progresses. They are typically a page in length, and make extensive use of simple couplets and line breaks to give a sense of breathless pensiveness, especially towards the end of the section. She begins her book with the poem “Nonesuch,” in which she describes a summer landscape, “wondrous / in a fundament of greens.” (Page 3, lines 12 & 13) Wilson begins the next poem of her book, “Hortus Siccus,” by announcing the change in seasons, musing “Now we get autumn / agricultural / ambuscades / between windfall / just so I know you / mean business.” (Page 4, lines 1-6) The proceeding poems continue along the lines of the second, detailing various aspects of the autumn rural landscape. This blithe recognition of pastoral beauty gives way gradually, however, to subjects of greater gravity. In “Landscape Primitive,” for instance, Wilson’s speaker details a bleak perception of his or her surroundings as a result of internal turmoil, seeing “each creature in / its stead, the brute / particles reordered / to an unforgiving.” (Page 12, lines 7-10) In “Requiescat,” the speaker mourns at a graveside, lamenting “the mob of black earth [that] / quells in spadesful.” upon the casket. (Page 13, lines 17 & 18) “Legend,” too, mourns a loss, as the speaker laments “you slipped from the cove and were gone.” (Page 16, lines 17 & 18) This first section of the book takes the tone from one of contented, if reflective, appreciation for the beauty of nature to one of austerity and pensiveness. Summer lapses into autumn, and autumn begins to lead into winter. The tone for Wilson’s subsequent poems, and the delivery of her message, is set.

The second section of The Keep introduces Wilson’s central theme with the aid of a single poem, “Radical Field.” Wilson uses the term “radical” to mean “arising from or going to the root of a source.” Indeed, this is precisely what the poem, or rather, set of thirteen mini-poems, does. Wilson begins with the image of a field, and through a series of strategic digressions, she allows the image to branch out in such a way that it eventually draws the reader back to a narrow focus. The divisions of the poem are brief, and, like the poems in the first section of The Keep, they are broken into an effective pattern of couplets, triplets, and single lines. In keeping with the poet’s style, the poems’ sentiments are demonstrated through natural images of the forest and ocean. The first of the mini-poems into which “Radical Field” is divided describes a field with “tenuous edges” and striated hides” through which “the caribou move…beyond numerous.” (Page 19, lines 1&2, 7-9) As part of the verbal illustration of the actual field in the first division of the poem, Wilson introduces the image of the landscape as a “pelagic” one, and seizes on this image of an ocean in the second division of the poem, in which she describes a “pink sea inch[ing] / back where the essences in-fill.” She then develops the image further, when her speaker asks the reader to “imagine your own bone cells. / Is it an ocean?” and then refers back to her original image of a field, demanding “is it this only lonelier?” (Page 20, lines 5-7) Here, Wilson progresses seamlessly from field to bone cell, as the image of a fields grassy expanse evokes the idea of an ocean, which evokes the image of a cell as viewed under a high-powered microscope. The third division of the poem returns once more to the image of an ocean, describing “a trace-sacred…quite certain. / the river’s self-effacement in the sea.” (Page 21, lines 5&6) This concept of the river as giving up its individuality to be a certain, stable, safe entity, a part of the great sea, harkens back to the image of the “lonely” bone cells giving up their identity to be a part of something greater than themselves, a human body. Indeed, the last couplet of the third division describes the river’s sacrifice as “no more than this / hopelessness skinned over,” the unconscious but bleak surrender of all parts of the speaker’s body to the desire for security. (Page 21, lines 8&9) The fourth division of “Radical Field” returns to the initial image of a field to speak of “the denaturing blaze” “of the dry grasses,” and in so doing introduce the question as to whether or not the tendency toward disassociation of parts is conscious (“the trans- to all my inactions”) or unconscious (“the trance of conflagration.”) (Page 22 lines 3 & 4) The speaker concludes that “one never knows which (line 5). The fifth division of the poem offers an overt description of Wilson’s project, asserting that “someone must know what is called for / to be mortal.” (Page 23, lines 6&7) The speaker demands “what is out-folding here / in the unpoliced recesses / of the dunes?” (Lines 1-3) This theme of out-folding, of becoming, is continued later in the division, as the speaker states that “the trend is / toward / branches.” (Lines 10-12) Like the “denaturing blaze” that consumes the grasses of the field, whether consciously or unconsciously, human nature tends to branch away from the dehumanization and “self-effacement” of the safety and security of sacrificing to be a part of a more stable entity. In the eighth division of “Radical Field,” the speaker says that “we knew / we would not be glamorous (like the ‘tragical stars’ introduced in division 6 of the poem) / but that was something. / That was the old mosaic / interface with somethingness. / What we stood out against.” (Page 26, lines 3-8) Here, Wilson evinces her perception of the revolt against stability and security as a revolt against meaning, as it is in submission to a higher entity that we obtain meaning. In division nine, Wilson’s speaker probes more deeply into the question of human revolt against the “somethingness” of life, asking if “it is indecent to be broken / off from the birds? / To be oblique and/or / violently finished up? / is this our crime? / To want abandonment / in the upper mansions?” (Page 27, lines 1-7) Here, it appears as if Wilson refers to “indecent[cy]” and “our crime” as the Christian concept of Original Sin. Have we brought misery upon ourselves in our refusal to subject ourselves to a higher power? Towards the end of the poem, the speaker considers the other option and asks “Are you the beautiful? / Are you the good news / tumor just ripening?” (Lines 8-10) The tenth division of the poem uses an image of “tough gulls go[ing] grim / about [their branching out movements],” which “ruin.” (Page 28, lines 1-4) Here, the speaker considers the gulls’ radiation as something ugly and “ruinous.” Is this the fate of human beings, to constantly create discord and repulsiveness? The eleventh division speaks of a “trapped” organism, the “orchid,” “thrive[ing] on its loveless foot” but with “something in the chemicals / remembering / sunlight over scumbled water” from the days before plants evolved to leave the freedom of drifting just below the water’s surface and moved to the sessile life of modern, rooted land-plants. (Page 29, lines 5-11) The final two divisions, twelve and thirteen, consider the earlier eleven. The twelfth division laments humanity’s lack of self-understanding, musing that “we grow modern without / being solved” and breathlessly demands “We are not waiting? / We are waiting? / We are the red studio? / We come just before the math?” (Page 30, lines 1&2, 7-10) The speaker is still questioning, and is left with no conclusion. Is the human desire for freedom from a higher entity beautiful or ruinous? Is it intentional or inadvertent? “Radical Field” begins with the single idea of a field, and branches out into ideas of an ocean and its seashore, human body cells, and land plants. Wilson weaves a tapestry of imagery to take her readers through her thought processes and show them how her conclusions came to fruition rather than merely stating her opinions. In so doing, she conjures a mental work of art that borrows from different elements, presents the aesthetic and the ascetic, and branches out, defying convention, much as she suggests human nature has a tendency of doing.

The third section of the Keep, “Winter Journal”, is similar to the first in that it contains extensive description of a pastoral setting. However, the season has changed, and the imagery is cold and stark, with much mention of grays and black against empty skies. The poems are longer than those in the first section, and the appearance of the words on the page, too, differs from that of the poems in the first section. These are not separated into couplets and stanzas, but rather ideas are distinguished only by line breaks and occasional indentations. This lack of couplets or stanzas paired with the presence of strategic indentation gives the poems a flowing, rushed feeling and an almost blustery appearance in keeping with their subject matter. In these poems, the speaker looks at the world with different eyes than in the first section. Perhaps this change is the result of the introduction of introspection and pondering on the nature of humanity introduced in the second section. The speaker now asks such questions as “Am I not as God made me but a stranger? / Made stranger still by what I have seen.” (Page 35 lines 13&14) and “Will I know then what I have become?” (Line 33) These poems predominantly discuss the details of the winter landscape, but in so doing raise questions that evince the speaker’s newfound pensiveness. In “Gray Shadings,” the speaker describes the winter sky and the “dull, impenetrable, intractable surface” of a river. (Page 37, line 15) However, rather than just a river, to the speaker this river is a “river of steel / river of no one becoming you.” The speaker also adds, in tones of existential exasperation, “I don’t know what to do with all this waiting / things getting themselves readied toward emptiness.” (Lines 18 & 19) In “Wind Thumbs through Woods,” a description of winter trees contains plaintive questions directed to an unnamed entity as the speaker helplessly asks “when did you go missing from me,” “don’t you ever think this is so strange?” and “don’t you feel how everything is strained beyond certain remembering?” The poem concludes with the speaker’s assertion that he or she “cannot wake up from inside.”

The fourth section of The Keep, like the second, is comprised of a single poem, “Ontogeny,” separated into numerous smaller divisions. The poetry’s structure here is similar to that in the first and second sections of the book, and is divided predominantly into couplets and single lines. The divisions of the poem are typically short, less than a page in length, and are broken into shorter line segments than the poems of any other section. They decrease in length as the poem progresses. The entire poem is written in second person, as though the speaker is addressing an unidentified character or entity. This poem contains an abundance of early spring imagery, in keeping with the seasonal progression of the book. In biological terms, the word “ontogeny” refers to the development of an individual organism from embryo to adult. This poem chronicles the degradation of a relationship of the speaker’s, romantic or otherwise. In the first division of the poem, the speaker uses lighthearted imagery, reminiscing “you and I emerge / under clouds as to/ touch them…” (Page 55, lines1-3) In the second division, however, the speaker writes of being alone and independent. She speaks of “rain whose waters are / the one allotment / in which the fool can / become herself…” (Page 56, lines 6-9) By the eighth division of the poem, it is evident that there has been a change between the speaker and the one she speaks to, as she writes “…we do / not fault ourselves / apart I know / you scarce as the seam / between two fields from / just this / far a jet traveling.” (Page 61, lines 4-10) The ninth division continues along this line, with the speaker stating “…you and / I for once stop wanting / what we can’t know / downstream between the drifter / heron and the luckless / smolt what we can’t / wrest the dusk / swallows. (Page 63, lines 2-9) The remainder of the poem has a sense of repair to it. Division eleven states “the ocean recobbles / this stormed beach we / once strode over” (Page 65, lines 1-3) and the twelfth division concludes the poem, with the speaker describing the wind as it “sutures / down the hinge / of the ravine / unstructuring.” (Page 66, lines 3-6) The speaker’s relationship undergoes a process of decline, as she seeks a life in which she can “become herself.” The poem concludes with the wind “unstructuring.” In keeping with her project for The Keep, Wilson depicts the decline of a relationship as a part of the tendency of human nature to move from a state of devotion to a higher entity, such as a relationship, to independence.

In the fifth and final section of her book, Wilson includes the book’s title poem, “The Keep;” a long, divided poem like those seen in sections two and four, “Eve Pieces;” and several other poems to conclude the work. “The Keep” isn’t divided into stanzas, but rather is arranged into fourteen lines of an unconventional sonnet of sorts. The tone of the poem is one of dreary pensiveness, as the speaker creates images of inadvertent, slow, inconsequential motion, describing “a slow / going nowhere kind of motion toward / centermost.” (Page 69, lines 9-11) This is the idea of the “keep,” the submission that leads to dehumanization. “Eve Pieces” is a collection of mini-poems, devoid of stanzas but making extensive use of line breaks and punctuation. They tell the story of the speaker’s downfall in the face of some temptation and her attempt to “[figure] / the slim pass between good / and untenable.” (Page 83, lines 5-7) In keeping with the title of the poem, imagery of the Biblical story of Adam and Eve abounds. The poem begins in the first section, “Comeling” with a discussion of temptation, as the speaker describes how she fell into the path of her error, lamenting “there was the still / terrible something to begin with.” (Page 71, lines 13 & 14) “Loomed” is filled with images of temptation, perhaps sexual: “rouged buds” and “unladylike” descent. (Page 74, lines 1 & 8) “Undone” appears to be a reflection upon the temptation submitted to in “Loomed,” as the speaker demands “was that heaven? – that tourniquet of hands / and lips and dressed thorns?” (Page 75, lines 5 & 6) “Ruin” completes the image of a descent into transgression using Biblical imagery, as it describes the “orchard” with its “seeds stuffed back into the earth” and its “cliques of honeysuckle / pinched to the far wrong side of pleasure.” (Page 76, lines 1 & 2, 3 & 4) After this, the divisions of “Eve Pieces” take on a tone of redemption, with titles like “Salvage,” “Familiar,” and “Creation.” These discuss the speaker’s contemplation of her downfall, as she states, in “Creation,” “I was never to be that figure, safe / but braced at the scenes of desire.” (Page 81, lines 7&8) In “Coda,” the concluding section of the poem, the speaker accepts her imperfection, admitting “I existed. / I knew myself to falter.” “Eve Pieces” is a depiction of the feelings of entrapment and eventual depression that may result from submission to the entity of sin in the form of succumbing to temptation.

The Keep is a collection of poems of different styles and with different individual goals that contribute to Emily Wilson’s project. Using the imagery of nature to create an art rather than a narrative, she weaves threads of meaning that move throughout the work and loom a dynamic tapestry that, despite all its diversity of texture and color, illustrates a reinforced central theme. Fall imagery moves into winter imagery and finally spring and summer imagery, and the speaker grows in wisdom, pondering the human tendency away from submission to a higher goal and its associated safety. The common thread is the image of a “keep” as a place of dual meaning, a safe for the protection of valuables or a place of entrapment, and the contradiction of human emotion that results from it.

Further Reading

“Writers among the Faculty and Staff at Grinnell”. “Grinell’s Community of Writers.” April 26, 2006. Emily Wilson. 4 May 2006. <http://web.grinnell.edu/english/Creative/faculty.html#Wilson>

Galvin, James. “Poet's Sampler: Emily Wilson” Boston Review . April/May 2002. The Boston Review. 4 May 2006. <http://www.bostonreview.net/br27.2/wilson.html>.

Rauschenbusch, Stephanie. “Radical Originality”. LitLine. July/August 2002. American Book Review. 4 May 2006. <http://www.litline.org/ABR/>