well it happened. my goal of 2024 finally reached on the third day. what luck! I was asked about DH Lawrence! To celebrate, here's a poem I don't remember reading by DH Lawrence. It's about fruit!
Pomegranate
You tell me I am wrong.
Who are you, who is anybody to tell me I am wrong?
I am not wrong.
Brilliant opening stanza. I'm going to start saying this all the time. Classic DH. Immediately on the defensive. Putting the reader in their place from the jump.
In Syracuse, rock left bare by the viciousness of Greek women,
No doubt you have forgotten the pomegranate-trees in flower,
Oh so red, and such a lot of them.
I don't know what he's talking about here. Syracuse is the main city in Sicily and apparently it was really important and stuff. I guess DH (the D stands for David) I guess ol Dave didn't like Greek women. If I had to guess I'd say the poem is generally talking about things that society tries to hide and ignore. Ol' Dave Herbert loved to talk about death and ~romance~ and how the two are intertwined. You can tell the poem has big feelings about the redness and bountiful nature of these trees in flower. Nature is so abundant and flagrant in a way that people of manners of civilization can't stand. That's what I think he's referring to by the "Rock left bare". Imagine parking lots and development but the ancient world version.
Whereas at Venice
Abhorrent, green, slippery city
Whose Doges were old, and had ancient eyes,
In the dense foliage of the inner garden
Pomegranates like bright green stone,
And barbed, barbed with a crown.
Oh, crown of spiked green metal
Actually growing!
He doesn't like Venice either! Too wet and slimy for the D man. What's a Doge? Turns out a Doge was someone of the highest authority in Venice. So it seems like green pomegranates are hidden in these secret gardens that only those at the very top have access to. A crown of spiked green metal. So in this case nature and all its associations has not been wiped out but it's this guarded, twisted sort of thing. Personally, I like how he's mad. He starts off insulting the reader, he dunks on greek women, he dunks on this slippery city. Dude is cranky.
Now in Tuscany,
Pomegranates to warm your hands at;
And crowns, kingly, generous, tilting crowns
Over the left eyebrow.
Apparently he loves Tuscany! I don't know what over the left eyebrow means but it sounds very suggestive and winky winky like. It seems like Tuscany by contrast is open and generous and the pomegranates are there for the picking!
And, if you dare, the fissure!
Do you mean to tell me you will see no fissure?
Do you prefer to look on the plain side?
Now he's talking about the fruit itself. An open pomegranate. Things are heating up and getting a little tawdry and baudy. It reads like he was beating around the bush a little just to get to this part. Like he was sort of making conversation about 'oh you know how in Venice they're like this and in Syracuse they're such and such" and now that he's sort of won you over by talking about how Tuscany has it figured out he's like 'bro I gotta admit I'm super into the inside of fruit.' And then he imagines you sort of turn away and he's like 'dude I thought you were cool like that! I trusted you dude! Don't tell me you're a prude! Like c'mon man you know you've thought about it, don't lie to me! Don't do this to me!"
It's very fun. I'm having fun.
For all that, the setting suns are open.
The end cracks open with the beginning:
Rosy, tender, glittering within the fissure.
Now he really lets loose. All the feelings come out. He's saying the beauty of the open pomegranate is a universal beauty. DH Lawrence is really interested in how the inevitability of death and the drive for all of nature to reproduce feed into one another. He's saying this stuff is as obvious as a sunset, it's right there for all to see.
Do you mean to tell me there should be no fissure?
No glittering, compact drops of dawn?
Do you mean it is wrong, the gold-filmed skin, integument, shown ruptured?
And so we find out the thing that is bugging him is that people don't like when he talks about this stuff. No no no no you can't talk about death. No no no no you can't talk about ~intimate relations~. That's all very impolite and uncivil and indecent. You won't get anywhere prattling on about this nonsense that everyone wants to sweep under the rug. Fun fact: integument is the rough outer layer of an animal or plant.
For my part, I prefer my heart to be broken.
It is so lovely, dawn-kaleidoscopic within the crack.
And then Davey Herb hits us with this excellent final stanza. He's like 'I don't care. I'm gonna be a sad boi. I'm gonna think about all this stuff and pomegranates because I think it's super neat and really pretty. Kaleidoscopic even. You dumb little babies can all just hang out with your heads in the dirt because these cool fruit innards are way better than hanging out with you guys anyway!
Great poem. 10/10. Love the message. Love the words. DHL delivers once again.
