Snow Thing
Is the handiwork of the Woonasquatucket Primitive hidden by the recent snow? Or do we see its nothing more? I'm reminded of the discussion of a Wallace Stevens poem in a recent essay by Nilima Rabl and Samuel Frederick in SubStance ("Dividing Zero: Beholding Nothing"):
"the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is"
They go on to write that Stevens is detailing an impossible point of view, in which the perceiver becomes a chilly cipher in the face of nothing. Only thus can one perceive nothing fully. It is a stance which stands against interpretation and encourages a "re-experience . . . [of] the world": "His 'mind of winter' allows him to behold his surroundings without the impulse for appropriation, without a desire to hold them for more than the instant of the beholding glance" (73). Perhaps the Woonasquatucket Primitive's scribbled pilgrims with their empty eyes are snowmen--even though they appear at all seasons. Afterall, Stevens' "mind of winter" seems to be timeless; there is no need to wait for snow to cultivate a mind that looks upon nothing "without thinking of 'misery.' " They continue: "Instead, what the snow man 'beholds' is an emptiness that is also a plenitude--just as the snow man himself is formed of ciphers, shapes that would usually circumscribe the emptiness they signify, but which in this case are full, filled with snow" (73). Are things hidden by the snow? No. Sounds ring out fuller, objects stand out more starkly, like glyphs of a giant book. But nobody is reading the book, and there is nothing to read, since we have suddenly become a black word, inching along, paying attention in an ambiguous tale.
"the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is"
They go on to write that Stevens is detailing an impossible point of view, in which the perceiver becomes a chilly cipher in the face of nothing. Only thus can one perceive nothing fully. It is a stance which stands against interpretation and encourages a "re-experience . . . [of] the world": "His 'mind of winter' allows him to behold his surroundings without the impulse for appropriation, without a desire to hold them for more than the instant of the beholding glance" (73). Perhaps the Woonasquatucket Primitive's scribbled pilgrims with their empty eyes are snowmen--even though they appear at all seasons. Afterall, Stevens' "mind of winter" seems to be timeless; there is no need to wait for snow to cultivate a mind that looks upon nothing "without thinking of 'misery.' " They continue: "Instead, what the snow man 'beholds' is an emptiness that is also a plenitude--just as the snow man himself is formed of ciphers, shapes that would usually circumscribe the emptiness they signify, but which in this case are full, filled with snow" (73). Are things hidden by the snow? No. Sounds ring out fuller, objects stand out more starkly, like glyphs of a giant book. But nobody is reading the book, and there is nothing to read, since we have suddenly become a black word, inching along, paying attention in an ambiguous tale.
posted by Joe Milutis at 6:58 PM
<< Home