'Continuum' Poem Analysis, Surrealism Sketches and Unnecessary Rambles About Time and Dreams
For our second assignment, we had to create a surrealistic visual interpretation of poetry. I have analysed the original one, that is, the one given in the brief, the other day. 'A Dream Within A Dream' by Edgar Allan Poe - a very paranoid poem from a very paranoid man.
Today I'd like to add a second poem, 'Continuum' by Allen Curnow. Much like Poe's poem, it's about dreams and it's about time. However, this one is written in a more languid manner, almost contemplative. It's quite complicated, so much that when I first read it, I had no idea what it was about at all. It was as if you took five random sentences from five very different books at random and compiled them into one paragraph. However, I grew very fond of it over time. I don't read as much poetry as I'd like to, but this is probably one of my favourite poems because of its sheer analytical potential. I think the best poems are ones that you really have to think about, and everytime you come back to analyse it, you discover something different. It's sort of like cleaning up a messy room or solving a jigsaw puzzle, but whereas these things can only look "right" one way or another (i.e. a clean room or a complete picture), good poems have so many different answers. And it's even better if you have someone to bounce ideas off, because I find that voicing my thoughts really helps organise them.
Anyway, the actual poem itself:
Continuum
Allen Curnow
The moon rolls over the roof and falls behind my house, and the moon does neither of these things, I am talking about myself. It’s not possible to get off to sleep or the subject or the planet, nor to think thoughts. Better barefoot it out the front door and lean from the porch across the privets and the palms into the washed-out creation, a dark place with two particular bright clouds dusted (query) by the moon, one’s mine the other’s an adversary, which may depend on the wind, or something. A long moment stretches, the next one is not on time. Not unaccountably the chill of the planking underfoot rises. in the throat, for it’s part the night sky empties the whole of it’s contents down. Turn on a bare heel, close the door behind on the author, cringing demiurge, who picks up his litter and his tools and paces me back to bed, stealthily in step.
One of the things you'll notice straight away from the poem is its rhythm. I always like to start analysing poems by looking at the bigger picture, such as its rhythm or structure or overall feel, before I get to the details. There seems to be no unifying structure in the poem other than there being three lines per stanza, but even the sentences aren't organised so that one lines equal one sentence. Punctuation marks are used liberally, sentences are often interrupted by sudden breaks or jumping lines. This makes the poem's rhythm messy, almost candid if you want to call it that. The poem, you could say, is a continuous train of thought, a thinking process instead of the result. This is evident in its lack of rhyme and liberal use of enjambment.
Continuum's beauty lies in its rawness. The poem is composed of bursts of ideas and inspiration along with awkward stops and lines to illustrate the reality of thinking - unstoppable and continuous. Poetic phrases such as "bright clouds dusted (query) by the moon" are followed with non-committal lines such as "or something." The word "query" is in brackets, as if the poet added it in later or wishes to edit it out, emphasising the poem's unfinished nature.
Nature plays a large part in the poet's search for inspiration (poem-worthy materials). He describes himself as the moon in the first stanza - "and the moon does neither of these things, I am talking about myself." In arcane knowledge and astrology, the moon often symbolises inspiration, madness, and inner feelings. The poet is looking for a definite thought or idea, an inspiration, but cannot do so because his mind is too jumbled. He's at a dead end - "it's not possible to get off to sleep or the subject or the planet, nor to think thoughts." He is lying in the border between sleep and waking, sanity and madness, reality and dreams. "Better barefoot it out" - describing his surrender to nature as he looks for the long-lost subject.
The poem uses juxtaposition to express the search for a concrete thought - "privets" are mentioned alongside "palms" and "washed-out creation", for example, contradicting his well-structured surroundings to the seaside or representation of freedom. "Washed-out creation" brings images of the ocean, or a painting, both representing artistry of which he is trying to grasp.
Time is relative in the space of though - "a long moment stretches, the next one is not on time." He describes losing himself in his thoughts and not paying attention to time. This is also shown in the first stanza - "the moon rolls over the roof and falls behind my house" - indicating the passage of the night. The poet is insomniac, or perhaps even sleepwalking, due to the rapid yet dreamy/unfocused tone of the poem. The moon is described as going round, a continuous cycle as natural as the earth turning. And since he describes himself as the moon, you could say that he is trapped in this neverending cycle of insomnia, sleepwalking, and madness, and insatiable thirst for ideas, an unconquerable quest for inspiration.
Towards the end of the poem, the tone changes. The author and "I" become two separate people, or the author begins to see himself in third person, perhaps to illustrate the detachment one feels when one is inspired, as if the person writing/painting/singing/whatever-ing is not you, but some other being entirely. The inspiration is sudden and perhaps even divine - "the night sky empties the whole of its contents down." This could even refer to a god, therefore his inspiration is a blessing from his god (or perhaps God is the inspiration, is he is looking for a god among nature). This is supported by the word "demiurge" which indicates the presence of a subordinate deity. It's worth noting that the author is the one who "paces me back to sleep", indicating the author as a separate character who reigns control over the poet, or "I".
Since the author controls the story and its characters, the poet - "I" - is merely another character in the poem, instead of the writer. By likening himself to a fictional character, you could say that that Curnow claims that we, the readers, aren't so different from the speaker of the poem after all.
Allen Curnow makes his thoughts so memorable because he completely exposes himself (and through him, the readers) in this poem, showcasing his vulnerability as a poet. The poem is not a finished result, but rather it is a continuous train of time (hence the title 'Continuum' in reference to something that continues to be so indefinitely). And yet, by presenting this raw, unfinished poem as a final result, you could say that Curnow broke the limitations of poetry, what is acceptable and what isn't, what is writing material and what isn't. Some people say that not everyone should write books, meaning that we can all come up with stories but not all of them are worth much. But is it really? Curnow clearly demonstrates that stray thoughts are, indeed, worthy of the label "literature". It is raw, it is vulnerable, it is him and it is us, every single one of us. Everyday, everytime, in a continuous cycle.
Unlike 'A Dream Within A Dream', which is very much influenced by fear - fear of the end of time, fear of death, fear of loss - 'Continuum's tone is more curious and contemplative. Whereas Poe used a highly emotional approach to writing, Curnow sought instead to explore ideas and abstract thoughts (I have a sneaking suspicion that Poe is Fi-dominant and Curnow may be Ne-dominant... but that's for another time).
Poe uses dreams as a symbolism for time, while Curnow uses time as a symbolism for dreams. However, are they not interconnected? I often feel as if some days are a dream, and someday I'd open my eyes and realise I've just spent hours daydreaming, or months have gone by without me registering what really happened. These two themes have also been popularly discussed as a unified concept by many, many authors - the ones I can think of at the top of my head are 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by Shakespeare and 'Alice in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll. If I remember correctly, the closing line went something like, "And in a Wonderland they lie, dreaming as the days go by, dreaming as the summers die... gently floating (?) down the stream, life, what is it but a dream?" And if my memory is true, Puck's closing line in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' referred to a life within a life, a dream within a dream or, in the story's context, a play within a play.
So what is it about time and dreams that attract so many artists and writers? Often, we would enforce our definitions of time onto something inanimate or intangible - take "what is life but a dream" and "as the summers die." Matrix, Inception, even those Japanese virtual reality animes, are all based on the concept that dreams are devoid of time, or a place where time stands still. On one hand, you could say that that's what makes dreams so special - that they could do something nothing else could do, which is stop time. On the other hand, what is time, really? The time we know as days, weeks, months, years, hours and seconds and age and birthdays and anniversaries and calendars and midnights and noons, are these not merely artificial measurements of time?
We say that the day ends when the sun sets, but what if you were to hop on a plane and keep flying west for as long as you can, essentially chasing the sun and avoiding nighttime? Could you stop time that way?
This is an unnecessarily long post, but it has been sitting in my Drafts folder for weeks and I just needed to get it out of my system. At the end of the day, I'm nowhere closer to understanding time and dreams, but I can't say that I mind. Like Curnow established in 'Continuum', the process is sometimes more important than the end result. And I guess that's why I go to great lengths to write these unnecessarily long analysis, often late into the night. Sometimes, I find myself so caught up with an idea that I waste my time thinking about it rather than working towards the end result, and I end up with no sleep for three weeks which would probably kill me faster or something and I should hate it, but the thing is - I don't. And probably only two people read my blog regularly (one of them being myself), and I swear half of my lecturers can't even bother, but I never did it for the grades anyway. I do it because I like it, plain and simple, I like ideas and concepts and connecting things and writing really long sentences because I often tell my friends that my mind is much too fast and my body can't keep up, and that's why I'm so clumsy and often lose things. And I guess what I'm trying to say is it's really late and I need sleep, but I'm also trying to say that y'all are beautiful people and everyone and everything is interesting if you just look a little bit closer.
Really, people who complain that they're bored just need to look around for a little bit.