"On Seeing Weather Beaten Trees" Adelaide Crapsey Is it as plainly in our living shown, By slant and twist, which way the wind has blown? | Adelaide Crapsey, born on September 9, 1878, in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, United States is often thought as a troubled and immensely talented soul for the harsh realities of her own life, which she portrays so eloquently in her writing. She dealt with dark and morbid themes, part of her harnessing an element of the bittersweet embrace of life, with all the astuteness of the oriental Masters from whom she toke so much inspiration(especially the Japanese haiku and tanka). Crapsey was regarded as the creator of the Cinquain, for experimentation in the combining eastern and western literary styles. The beauty this somber collaboration creates is utterly unique and unlike anything the literary world had seen before: the five unrhymed lines of the Cinquain followed strict accentual-syllabic requirements. These lines consisted of first two, then four, then six, eight, and two syllables (or accents), subsequently. Another, similarity between Crapsey’s arrangement and that of the Japanese Haiku is Crapsey’s modified version of the “break”, or the Japanese’s abrupt revelation of the truth, Crapsey’s version is a variety of simultaneous usage of overlapping ideas. Crapsey’s admiration of the Asian writing styles was very similar to that of Ezra Pound, both appreciated the pithy metrical schemes and ceremonial image. Adelaide Crapsey’s life was tainted by the morbid knowledge that it was to be cut prematurely short by her diagnosis with tuberculosis of the brain lining in 1911 at the age of 23, she kept this discovery to herself and revelation ate her alive. Adelaide Crapsey died far too young at the age of 36, writing till the end, even from her sickroom in a sanatorium at Saranac Lake, New York. Adelaide Crapsey’s life was like her writing, brief, brilliant and tainted with lingering, but realistic agony. If you wish to read more about her other aspects of her life are covered in the analysis of her poem, November Nights linked below. |
Even without the aid of its deft poetic structure and clever rhythmic eloquence, Crapsey’s work would be a victory in it’s own right. Had her verse been written as a mundane sentence it would still carry a figurative magnitude behind it’s banal physicalities. Lying just beneath the surface of Crapsey’s compositions own symbolic allusion to life. Posing the essential question: “Does the life shape the man?” or “Does the man shape his life?”. It also ponders whether our appearance betrays the toils of our separate quests, begging the conundrum: can you make the measure of a man’s suffering from his outward presence of character alone? Is the way that life has treated us and our retaliations marked in the way we carry on breathing? Can human lives be analyzed in the same fashion as those of trees? Can the paths we have chosen be discerned from our present state, just as the way a trillions can tell us the direction in which the wind has blown? Well, there are many elements that factor into how appearance reveals more internal secrets. The leaves of a tree, can tell us about many aspects of the tree’s health, from the abundance of sunlight and water that year, to the availability of nutrients in the soils and changes in climate or temperature. Trees and people, both bare scars and hold the stories of each one. each being exists as a creative rendition of their past, the points in time that changed them evident in the knots in their bark and the wrinkles in their skin, by their greying hairs and crinkling leaves. Crapsey’s work please we ask what the anatomy of our own lives can tell us about how our own pasts have molded us.
Truth can be found in the pondering go the query, for yes, the way the wind blows will impact the growth of a tree and yes, the event of our yesterdays will shape the outcomes of our tomorrows. But the winds trails have been predetermined by the jet streams we cannot control, buffering us in the same direction every season. The winters are colder, and the summer bring up breezes from the balmy gulf, there may be points in our live when the monsoons catch up with the us shifting the course of the gale. This cataclysm may bring heavy rains and the great reversal of our lives could summon a storm as orientations finally adjust. The direction in which we are blown is not determined by a solitary factor, for our choices vie for dominance in their influence over our lives. For a tree may choose to grow towards the sun, but it may just as well prefer the shade, plausibly better suited to life in the penumbra, where there is rich, dark foliage supported with an affluence of chlorophyll b, while those that grow in an area of more potent sunlight are blessed with higher levels of chlorophyll a, have a lighter coloration. An early freeze may the vivid quality of their colors and a lack of nutrients may leave them dull and brown. Additionally, the wind will never be the only element which manipulates the constrictions of a man or the growth of a tree. So, yes admittedly the angle of the wind will strain to craft the way a tree may grow, but the stronger the tree, the less palpable the impression will be and a truly resilient tree grow to be imperious to the gusts and eventually they will fail to make even the slightest permutation in its bearing. The myriad of contributing factors that aid in the development of a being whether they are human or topiary is so varied and vast that we cannot begin to expect to be shown to be shown the route of a life by a single component. So, yes the wind, and turmoils we face everyday will weather away at us and we will continue to show the signs. But, should we point our faces toward the sun, you might find the blemishes of the years fading away.
“On Seeing Weather Beaten Trees” is an absorbing piece of literature even if it is little in length. For though it take far too few seconds to read, it may take hours to fathom, and for it’s meaning to manifest fully in our lives. Continuing to impact us long after we finish it’s tangible words Adelaide Crapsey has accomplished something substantially satisfying and my mind and soul are thankful for it.