A Poem Is a Thing That Wounds

Where the known and familiar become one with the mysterious and half-wild.

Troubled Into Its Making

The late American poet Lucie Brock-Broido wrote, “My theory is that a poem is troubled into its making. It’s not like a thing that blooms; it’s a thing that wounds.”

I have been thinking about these words in relation to the poem “Bees” by Jean Valentine (1934-2020).

“Bees” is short (ten lines), concise and unadorned, written in uncomplicated and modest sentences. One line simply states these casual words: “Another man comes over”.  

While almost all of Jean Valentine’s poems come from dreams she almost never mentions in the poem that the narrative is a dream. Dreams are murky especially when you wake up and attempt to describe one. But Valentine distills the dream into translucent, vibrant language – reading her poems is like looking at the varied coloured stones at the bottom of a clear lake. She has said, “I’m always working with things that I don’t understand – with the unconscious, the invisible. And trying to find a way to translate it.”

Adrienne Rich also used a lake image to describe Valentine’s work: “Looking into a Jean Valentine poem is like looking into a lake: you can see your own outline, and the shapes of the upper world, reflected among rocks . . . The known and familiar become one with the mysterious and half-wild, at the place where consciousness and the subliminal meet.” 

Here is the poem:

Bees 
                  for Sandra McPherson

A man whose arms and shoulders
and hands and face and ears are covered with bees
says, I’ve never known such pain.
Another man comes over
with bees all over his hands—
only bees can get the other bees off.
The first man says again,
I’ve never known such pain.
The second man’s bees begin to pluck
the first grave yellow bees off, one by one.

Truths About Suffering

Image: Jean Valentine, brinkerhoffpoetry.org

This fable-like poem holds psychological truths about suffering: it suggests that the very thing that is hurting you may be what will heal you. A thorn can remove a thorn. Some poisons can remove poison. And in this dream-poem, bees can remove bees from someone’s body.

The poem “Bees” touches on the mysteries of suffering, empathy, human connection, and healing. The man who is suffering from the bees is saved by another man with bees. Does this suggest that pain can only be truly addressed by another person who experiences that same pain?

Every time I read this poem I marvel at the clarity of the narrative – a potentially complicated story is condensed and told without confusing the reader. And the unpretentious quality of the language is remarkable – the poem has a modesty to it. Simple basic words fill the poem: “arms and shoulders” and “The first man says” and “get the other bees off”. Words like “says” and “get” are dangerously bland yet the poem benefits from them – we trust this ordinary, authentic speaker. There is nothing fancy there.

The mundanity of these words is relaxing and creates a sense of trust. But I can imagine how in poetry workshops the choice of those words would not go down well – I can hear someone saying, “Can you think of fresher language to use?” But in this case, the commonplace language reflects a mature, grounded speaker – no need to show off with impressively unique words (although there will be one such word in the poem’s last line); rather, we have a trusted speaker, a friend, telling us a profound story with a simplicity that mesmerizes–it reminds me of the late poet Stanley Kunitz’s words: “I dream of an art so transparent you can look through it and see the world.” When reading “Bees” I forget I am reading a poem – I get lost in it and feel I am just looking at the world.

And then we come to the last line. The use of the words “grave” and “yellow”, especially next to each other, are surprising. Yellow is not a colour one would associate with “grave”. The word “yellow” is honouring the bees, praising them for saving the man by highlighting their bright colour. And the word “grave”, unanticipated and  mysterious here. Who would ever associate the word “grave” with bees? “Grave” has connotations with a burial place — death is an undercurrent in the poem. But the word grave is used more obviously I think to emphasize the true weighty significance of the oxymoron: the bees in the world of this poem both cause and remove suffering.

Questions

This short poem raises so many questions. One is: why are these men with the bees and not women? I don’t have an answer to that but I will point out that the poem is written by a woman and is dedicated to another woman — the writer Sandra McPherson. This giving of words from one woman to another reflects the giving of the bees from one man to another man. Words wound and heal; bees wound and (at least in this poem’s world) heal. Perhaps the poem is respecting the suffering that both sexes experience. Including two men in the poem rather than a man and a woman might suggest that the two men are the same man.

Although the poem honours human connection and empathy, perhaps it’s ultimately considering self-healing. It’s asking, how might we, “after great pain” as Emily Dickinson wrote, restore ourselves? If we interpret the poem in a way where the two men are the same man then perhaps the poem suggests that a suffering person can sometimes face their suffering, and through this acceptance, they might take care of themselves and heal.  Acknowledgment of one’s suffering can lead to relief. And as Dickinson wrote at the end of “After great pain” – “ then the letting go.” Perhaps a form of acceptance can allow us to ultimately let go of our pain.