Amaryllis

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/amaryllis/

There comes a point in all of our young lives when we realize that life ends and people that we once knew we will no longer be with.  This story generally plays out at a young age with a grandparent and the memories can be haunting and confusing.  The emotions are hard for a child to explain, but this is EA Robinson’s attempt.
The poem is written once again from the point of view of a child (presumably) of Tilbury Town (going so far as to say “I”).  The young boy has wandered into the woods and encounters an elderly man. The man that no longer has someone to share his experiences with takes the passerby boy with him to view Amaryllis.  I can’t decide whether or not the boy knew Amaryllis, but either way, this is the first time he is struck by the cold and lonely idea of growing old and dying while the joyful sounds of the town ring in the background.

Alma Mater

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/alma-mater/

He knocked, and I beheld him at the door–
A vision for the gods to verify.
“What battered ancient is this,” thought I,
“And when, if ever, did we meet before?”
But ask him as I might, I got no more
For answer than a moaning and a cry:
Too late to parley, but in time to die,
He staggered, and lay ahapeless on the floor.

When had I known him? And what brought him here?
Love, warning, malediction, fear?
Surely I never thwarted such as he?–
Again, what soiled obscurity was this:
Out of what scum, and up from what abyss,
Had they arrived–these rags of memory.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Memories from our pasts can haunt us if we let them. Sometimes these memories that we think are gone show up again, if only for a brief moment. It could be a billboard, a fragrance, a phrase, or any number of thinks that trigger a chemical reaction in our brains to remember something specific. Sometimes it’s not even a memory that is triggered, but an emotion. An emotion that can capture our curiosity in it’s relation to our past. Why did this particular thing trigger an emotion or partial memory? There are missing pieces but I can’t put it all together.

In Alma Mater, Robinson writes about a character that is experiencing this phenomenon but what has triggered his memory is a dieing person knocking at his door. The first stanza describes the dieing man knocking at the door as an indiscriminate person, asking only, “When, if ever, did we meet before?” However, the second stanza leaves the stranger and goes into the second characters head as he searches his memory. The character has to recollect his past, possibly reliving all of his encounters positive and negative to find how he knows this dead man. He is sickened by all of his emotions as he sees his past in the dead.

Afterthoughts

http://poemhunter.com/poem/afterthoughts/

Many of Robinson’s poems (including his most famous “Richard Cory”) follow a seemingly mundane event or person with the whole poem turning on the last two to four lines. In many instances, this is how life is. A seemingly typical day, event, or action can become burnt into our memories based on completely unrelated events. If you’ve ever lost anyone near to you, you realize this feeling. Every seemingly insignificant moment you had with them during your last talk or last encounter with them is now with you forever. A look, a smile, a laugh, a phrase, or a gesture that on all other days and at all other times would be nearly meaningless has been given a special place in your heart. Every little thing about that person you remember is now so much more important.

In “Afterthoughts” Robinson tells the story from the point of view of a forlorn Tilbury Town resident that by all means was just a normal “see ya later.” The last five lines of the first stanza are quite complicated, but this is what I gather. The person being spoken about has “Earned more than the earth gives to those who have won more than it has to give when they are gone.” I start at the end to figure out “What the earth gives someone when they are gone.” I figure “gone” to be dead and what is given is peace, happiness, or something along those lines. These lines are stating that what the writer has learned from this encounter is that the other person has a happiness or peace or some desirable quality about their spirit beyond that of the average or even above average person.

The second stanza begins by describing what the person says as meaning “little then and less today” and the way he spoke had “little Delphic heights to climb.” The term Delphic means “obscurely prophetic,” so the line “he had little Delphic heights to climb,” just meant he spoke simply and meant exactly what was said. Despite his lack of eloquence and subtlety the writer looks back on the event (but more the person) and now considers this to be “somehow nearer the sublime.”

In a typical Robinson way the poem abruptly reveals the twist and ends, simultaneously making the event important and explaining the emotions of the writer.

Aaron Starck

http://poemhunter.com/poem/aaron-starck/

Many times we gain a distant familiarity with someone that we often see but not oft have interaction with. Based on our limited interactions with them we create our impressions, but rarely do we actually askourselves, “What past events led to this person’s current lifestyle?” or, “Are they happy?” (We usually just assume they couldn’t be).

Edwin Arlington Robinson writes many poems about the fictional Tilbury Town and it’s many residences. I imagine that many of these poems begin in Robinson’s head with a single idea for a characteristic of a person, then travel backwards to create a back-story that only Robinson knows. At this point Robinson fully knows the person he’s writing about (more than any of us could). He then writes a poem about the person completely from the outside, from the reader’s perspective, telling us only what we would see if we were to encounter Aaron Starck walking the streets of Tilbury Town. The reader then has two choices: 1. We can read the poem from the outside and create a superficial opinion or, 2. We can examine and create our own back-story to understand the person in our own way.

Upon first reading, it may seem a simple, pointless poem about a haggard old man, similar to the many homeless you may see around Los Angeles or anywhere else. When closer attention is paid to the few characteristics given, outside of appearance, we see a man who has little to be proud of, save his reputation. Albeit a “poor” reputation, it is something he is known for and through his own delusions of grandeur (we all have those to some extent) this is his “claim to fame”, if you will. The only thing that made Aaron Starck happy was to know he was on the towns-folk’s tongues and moreover that someone would have strong enough emotion to verbalize their pity to him.

A Song at Shannon’s

http://poemhunter.com/poem/a-song-at-shannon-s/

As I grow older I increasingly have the opportunity to reminisce about events of the past when I visit my hometown or run into an old friend. The past exists mostly entirely in our brains (even if it were documented with photos or video). Because of this our imagination takes over and the good memories become epic, the bad memories become tragic, and every detail “remembered” (or imagined) brings back an even more heightened emotion. Generally these encounters leave me with my heart beating fast and a smile on my face. I remember the past, and I know that I wasn’t thinking “This is the best time of my life” and yet looking back everyone always thinks “That was the best time of my life.”

This poem is similar to one of my favorite Mexican films called “Y Tu Mama Tambien” in which two teen-aged best friends go on a cross-country adventure leading to the eventual demise of their friendship. The movie ends with a three minute scene in which they meet in a coffee shop and talk about the past. They both seem happy, but they both realize they are meant to be separate. They part ways never to meet again.

This is my personal experience (that I imagine to be mostly universal) that I have brought to “A Song at Shannon’s”. This story, of course, is heightened by the description of the men as “lonely” and leaving “with his own regret”. These two men have separately arrived at this bar “Shannon’s” a slow night. The men while seemingly happy have come together where the seemingly happy congregate. They realize their counterpart and embrace one another with conversation and laughs and drinks. In a single instant the mood is changed as ones actions or words remind both why they fell away from one another. The conversation slows to an awkward halt. Both of their hearts still race as they shake hands at the door, give a short fake explanation for where they need to go, and walk away with the beautiful stench of the past still lingering.

This poem, while only fourteen lines long, plays out in my head like a short film that has enough back-story to make a feature length motion picture about best friends, growing up and lonely old men.

The line “Slowly away they went, leaving behind more light than was before them” is a whole story in a single sentence. I could read only that line and see a whole movie in my head. What a beautiful piece of writing.

A Happy Man

http://poemhunter.com/poem/a-happy-man/

This poem seems pretty straightforward and heartfelt. While still about death/departure (I say “still” based upon past readings) this poem manages to be positive and uplifting. This is what Robinson dictates as “happy“. What truly makes this a beautiful piece of work, though, is not just the poem, but knowing that it is coming from a depressed, self-inflicted hermit that secretly dreams of growing old with a wife and family.

On a side-note this poem is ranked #255 in the top 500 poems of all-time on poemhunter.com