"Animals" Alfred Kreymborg What animal you are or whether you are an animal, I am too dumb to tell. Some moments, I feel you've come out of the earth, out of some cool white stone deep down in the earth. Or there brushes past and lurks in a corner the thought that you slipped from a tree when the earth stopped spinning, that a blue shell brought you when the sea tired waltzing. You might be a mouse, the dryad of a woodpecker, or a pure tiny fish dream; you might be something dropped from the sky, not a god-child- I wouldn't have you that- nor a cloud- though I love clouds. You're something not a bird, I can tell. If I could find you somewhere outside of me, I might tell- but inside? | Alfred Kreymborg’s life began in a seemingly prosaic fashion in a small cigar store in New York City, born to parents, Hermann and Louisa Kreymborg on the tenth of December, 1883 into the evolving modernist age of poetry. Kreymborg was introduced into an age of literature when the most prominent trend was breaking the traditional rules, this era saw the rise of the “free verse” poem and the birth of “slant” rhyme. Unlike many renowned poets of the time, Kreymborg wasn’t much for travel and remained in his home town, and occasionally New Jersey for most of his life. He frequented areas of cultural growth and diversity such as Greenwich Village, a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan known for being the birthplace of the Beat and ’60’s counterculture movements, both of which had a profound effect in the literature and other medias of the time, especially poetry. It was in his marvelous and bustling city that Kreymborg became the favorite of Alfred Stieglitz( prominent literary promoter and photographer), and the first literary figure to be included in his 291 circle(named after the Fifth Avenue Art gallery), as well an associate of the Ferrer Center, and friend and business partner of Man Ray. The two collaborated to produce the first ten issues of The Glebe; Kreymborg’s first modernist magazine. It was in The Glebe, that Ezra Pound’s acclaimed first collection of Imagism was published when “Des Imagistes" was sent to Kreymborg by his friend John Cournos( a lesser known anti-communist writer). From here Kreymborg continued to publish modernist magazines and soon became associated with the likes of William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore and Marcel Duchamp all of whom contributed to Kreymborg’s numerous and growing magazines, which included Others: A Magazine of New Verse and the short lived Broom: An International Magazine of the Arts. The magazines were often subject of beats and conflicts between writers and editors and even artists, and eventually financial situations took them out of Kreymborg’s hands. Kreymborg also founded an annual poetic anthology titled American Caravan with the collaboration of Paul Rosenfeld. Carl Sandburg was another of Kreymborg’s famous friends, and the two were especially close, though each chose to write in free verse independently. Kreymborg earlier tone-poems coined as ‘mushrooms’ seldom made it into print until their publication as an anthology in 1916 by publisher John Marshall in a piece titled ‘Mushrooms: A Book of Free Forms’ which William Carlos Williams praised as a “triumph for America”. Encouraged by the positive reception of his first official publication Kreymborg spent a year touring the states and reading his poems, which he accompanied with his own compositions on the Mandolute. The 1920’s proved to be the most prolific age of Kreymborg’s poetry, including the publication of more anthologies, his autobiography ‘Troubadour’ and a written narrative and his struggling and tangled love life. The 1930’s brought about a short radio career and the end of public life, it was around thirty years later in the summer of 1966 on August 14 that Kreymborg died, an editor, historian and anthologist who had a profound impact on the shaping of the Modernist movement; which he himself recorded in Our Singing Strength(1929) an exclusively intricate history of American poetry, which unique insight into the community of Modernist poets. |
There is no established structure to Alfred Kreymborg’s writing, he follows no traditional poetic verse forms, or even it seems any arrangement at all, the relations between his lines appear unparalleled by any preceding or following them. Each line has it’s own distinctive length, meter and character, making for a collectively striking piece. Some lines are decisively pithy, others are surprisingly protracted; lengths and rhythms contrast each other making for a level of interest that does not let up. Kreymborg employs length and punctuation for emphasis within his composition, drawing attention and clarity to his shorter lines and focus and intent to his longer. Even the number of lines is interesting the prime number twenty-nine stable and indivisible, making for an intriguing and unexpected strength without the rigidity of classical forms. Additionally, he uses hyphens to connect ideas while simultaneously bringing individual priority to the separate sections. There is no rhyme scheme in this composition, the only repetition of sound is between repeated words and phrases such as “you are” in the beginning two lines, and “out of” shortly after these litanies works as affiliates between the lines making up for a lack of pattern or form. These repetitions occur frequently throughout the piece from “clouds” to the more vague recurrences of animal subjects( e.g. mouse, woodpecker, fish) or natural environment (e.g. earth, stone, brush, tree, shell, sea, sky). Personification is also utilized, although much less frequently in slightly nonsensical phrases such as “the sea tired waltzing”. The overall feel of the poem is raw and instinctive, it’s volubility is automatic, with a natural familiar rhythm to it’s madness like the ordered chaos of thoughts. There is subtle wit and wild whimsy to Kreymborg’s writing that allows it to be fascinating at every turn.
The theme of Alfred Kreymborg’s “Animals” is perhaps the most complex factor in the entire composition.The one element that is made clear is the internal nature of Kreymborg’s address, this is elucidated in the final four lines,
“If I could find you somewhere
outside
of me, I might tell-
but inside?”
These lines express both confusion and a bit of wonder, the subject is address as a conscious being yet personification could be in use. Working backwards brings us to attempted discernment of the character of the subject, lastly with airborne beings both animate and inanimate,
“you might be something dropped from the sky,
not a god-child-
I wouldn't have you that-
nor a cloud-
though I love clouds.
You're something not a bird,
I can tell.”
In these lines it established that our subject is no child of any deity, eliminating the possibility of Messiah or angel, no cloud either( canceling the idea’s of ephemeral being such as ghosts, winds, thoughts or other incorporeal manifestations or alternatively a barrier, or haze surrounding something, preventing visibility), and it’s seems obvious to the poem’s speaker that his audience of one is no avian( perhaps symbolizing a wild nature or freedom). The preceding lines had ruled out a creature of the earth or sea:
“that a blue shell brought you
when the sea tired waltzing.
You might be a mouse,
the dryad of a woodpecker,
or a pure tiny fish dream;”
These lines don’t just erase all notions of animal life from forest bird to tiny mouse, but also the cognitions of these beings “tiny fish dream”. The two lines before are most fully understood when in connection with the first segment of the poem. After, the introduction, in which the poem’s speaker reveals his uncertainties regarding the nature of his subject,
“What animal you are
or whether you are
an animal, I
am too dumb to tell.”
The thought contained in here is not quite contempt and seems unsarcastic in the purity of its address, it expresses that poem’s subject is so far beyond his simple comprehension, that he is not even capable of the most basic diagnostic of it’s identity. Next, he tries weakly to give form to his hypothesis:
“Some moments,
I feel you've come out of the earth,
out of some cool white stone
deep down in the earth.”
These lines give form to a source of natural balance and earthly comfort, stoic yet constant and older than one can imagine. Yet, our subject is not flawless they are indeed capable of human accident,
“Or there brushes past
and lurks in a corner
the thought
that you slipped from a tree”
These lines see our beloved subject fall with all the fleeting grace of man, but also established the apparently random structure of the poem as psychological with all the depth, speed and aimless course of our own mental processes scurrying hither and to, in and out of the dark recesses of the mind. This brings us back to the where we left off in dismissal of our subject as a water-borne creature:
“when the earth stopped spinning,
that a blue shell brought you
when the sea tired waltzing.”
These lines have an interesting start, “when the world stopped spinning is this a nod to the end of the world? Yet, it could simply be that this is a statement of uncomplicated nausea or dizziness or mere discombobulation. This however leads to the thought that this whole poem may be the thought of a man just regaining consciousness, no wonder they are so twisted and absurd, trying to address the waking realizations that flood his still feeble and vulnerable mind. Or maybe the whole poem is simply a slightly ridiculous attempt to articulate our speaker inability to give words to the nature of his lone audience. Perhaps, that final lines to not signify the presence of the subject necessarily inside of him, but the inability to find inside of him the words to describe them. Whatever meaning you choose, and whatever meaning was originally intended by Alfred Kreymborg himself, “Animals” is a remarkable and refreshing poem of incomparable rarity and startling multiplicity.
Alfred Kreymborg proved himself both an accomplished writer, and judge of writers from editing several eminent Modernist Magazines, to boosting and influencing the careers of several notable Modernist writers. From writing a candid array of audacious and authentic, original Free Verse as well as histories and anthologies of the broad world of verse, Kreymborg established himself as a respected authority on Modernist art and literature. His own writing was rare and experimental, highly original and starkly unique. His poem “Animals” is an iconic example of the liberty he takes in organizing his works, an estrangement from any traditional or pre-determined styles cannot be emphasized thoroughly enough to express its magnitude. The poem comprises complex thought alongside emancipated verse and basic library devices, creating a piece of singular splendor and appeal.