Truth and Bright Water: Poetry Question 9

This question asked us to find four poems we thought related to Truth and Bright Water and explain why. This assignment took alot of work, as we had to not only explain the relation of characters but also pull examples and quotations from sometimes multi-page poems. This assignment demonstrates my ability to respond to a variety of print and nonprint texts, this time in poem and novel form. It shows I am able to follow a plan of inquiry, through my forming generalizations and conclusions about the similarities between characters. This assignment also helped me improve my thoughtfulness, effectiveness and correctness of communication.

This assignment also began the development of a new-found love of poetry for me.

Truth and Bright Water Poetry Question 9

Marcus Ramsay

            The poem Icarus by Don McKay has many connections to Truth and Bright Water’s character Lum. Icarus is a character in Greek mythology who builds a set of wings to give him the ability to fly. Despite constant warnings from his father, Icarus flies to high and too close to the sun, sending him “tumbling into freefall,” (line 23, Icarus)and he plummets into the sea to his death. The character of Icarus “isn’t sorry,” (line 1, Icarus) meaning he has no regrets, similar to Lum. Some of Lum’s final words in Truth and Bright Water are him singing “Bye-bye, baby, bye- bye.” (Page 271, T&BW) Lum tells Tecumsuh it was his “mother’s favourite song” (Page 271, T&BW). Although it is not yet known Lum is about to fall from the bridge to his immediate death, the words of the song are foreshadowing, similar to Icarus’s fathers warnings of not flying to close to the sun. The way Icarus “rehearses flight and fall,” (line 5, Icarus) can also be compared to Lum’s running and his constant battle against himself to “go faster” (page 4, T&BW). Both Icarus and Lum’s deaths cause a great deal of pain to family and friends around them, but their stubborn and selfish attitudes leave them with no remorse and neither of them are “sorry”(line 35, Icarus).

            The speaker in William Wordsworth’s The World is to Much With Us has an outlook on life very similar to that of Monroe Swimmer’s in Truth and Bright Water. The speaker in the poem claims “we lay waste our powers” (line 2, The World is to Much With Us), accusing people of wasting the technology and potential we have in the modern age and not doing everything possible with it. Monroe is attempting to bring back First Nations culture and have modern day people respect their ancestors and what they believed in. Both Monroe and the speaker in the poem are not well understood by others, shown in the novel when Miles says Monroe is “probably queer” (page 177, T&BW), or when the speaker says he wishes to be “standing on this pleasant lea”(line 11, The World is to Much With Us), because he would rather be interacting with the gods than with simple civilians that do not understand him. Monroe briefly discusses about his ambitions “to be a hero” (page 209, T&BW) when he was younger. Him and the speaker in the poem are both attempting to discuss that dream all children have to be a hero when they are younger, but as they get older they “are out of tune; It moves [them] not.” (line 8, The World is to Much With Us) and they begin to grow out of touch with their previous dreams and accept the harsh reality of adulthood. Those individuals who are lucky enough to continue dreaming as they age have the ability to continue making the most of their talents and doing something with it to make the world a better place.

            One Perfect Rose by Dorothy Parker can be connected to the battle for love between Elvin and Helen. That “One perfect rose” (line 7, One Perfect Rose), describes the love that Elvin is constantly battling for but Helen has given up long ago. Elvin’s many attempts to impress Helen with the chair and the restoration of the Karmahhn Ghia are always foiled by his unfortunate unreliability, leaving Helen with many false hopes that her ex-husband could one day change his foolish ways. The speaker in One Perfect Rose is still searching for the “one perfect limousine,” (line 9, One Perfect Rose) to pick her up and take her away to the place of happiness she feels she deserves. Helen is also feeling this way, but unfortunately may not find a man to be that limousine that Elvin cannot be.