Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

The poem "Rotting Symbols" by Eileen Myles offers an introspective look at change, transience, and memory against the backdrop of urban life and the poetic process. The narrator of the poem explores the passage of time, employing the setting of Second Ave and the West Village in New York City to underline both personal and communal shifts.

The first section of the poem suggests a quest for understanding or enlightenment, as the speaker declares, "Soon I shall take more / I will get more light / and I'll know what I think / about that." Light here could symbolize knowledge, clarity, or spiritual insight, setting the tone for the rest of the poem, which seeks to shed light on various aspects of life and thought.

The poem moves quickly from broad considerations to very specific images, like "the frieze of my hand / like a grandmother / captured in an institution." Here, the frieze symbolizes something frozen in time or antiquated, a sentiment reinforced by the image of the captured grandmother. This transitions smoothly into a reflection on change and the impossibility of returning to previous states of being: "I know I'll never live here again etc. / many many long years ago."

One striking feature is the poem's nuanced take on symbols and their decay over time. In the West Village, for instance, wearing a "silly hat" might have once signified something, but 20 years later, the same hat signifies loyalty to something that's "so gone." The hat becomes a "rotting" symbol, echoing a larger theme of decay and change that permeates the poem.

Further, the poem posits poetry itself as a "sentimental act," intrinsically tied to the writer's emotional and psychological landscape. The notion of rot extends to the realm of ideas and epics: "all I see is rotting ideas / the epics I imagined." This line conjures the notion that even grand ideas and narratives are susceptible to the decay of time and changing perspectives.

Myles' writing style itself is an essential element in conveying the themes. Written in free verse, the poem ebbs and flows like thought itself. The poem's language is both mundane and grandiose, switching from everyday observations to lofty ideas seamlessly. This mix serves to highlight the poem's core message about the impermanence and constant transformation in both the external world and internal emotional landscapes.

The closing lines encapsulate this sentiment: "You survived." Survival here is not merely living through events but enduring the inevitable changes, losses, and transformations that life entails. The sense of resilience in the face of transience seems to say that although everything rots, decays, or changes, some essence remains.

In sum, "Rotting Symbols" by Eileen Myles is a complex and introspective poem that uses the backdrop of a changing urban landscape to explore deeper themes of impermanence, memory, and the act of writing itself. It is a masterful blend of the personal and universal, grounded in specifics while reaching for something ineffably larger.

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