Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"Words for Departure" by Louise Bogan stands as an intricate tapestry of human emotions woven around the themes of memory, loss, and departure. The poem is at once an intimate conversation between the speaker and the reader, as well as a larger meditation on the transient nature of human relationships and experiences.

The opening lines "Nothing was remembered, nothing forgotten" capture the ambiguity of human emotion and memory. It's an interesting paradox: the simultaneous presence and absence of recollection, mirroring how moments become woven into the larger fabric of our lives. Yet, the details-"wagons... passing," "window-sills...wet," and "birds scattered"-function as markers of time and change, evoking both a sense of nostalgia and a recognition of the inescapable movement of time.

While the first stanza grapples with acceptance and understanding, it also hints at a sort of emotional resignation. "Nothing was accepted, nothing looked beyond." This might signify a reluctance to change or perhaps an acceptance of the limits of human experience. As "dusk [falls] like precipitous water," the speaker indicates that some things in life are as inevitable as the setting sun, as relentless as gravity pulling water down.

The second part of the poem starts with "I have remembered you." Here, the focus shifts from the communal to the personal, from observation to introspection. The other person is described as being "awkward as flesh" yet "lighter than frost or ashes," encapsulating the complexities and contradictions inherent in human relationships. The striking similes serve to emphasize the ever-changing, ever-elusive nature of the person and the emotions involved.

The third part offers a kind of instruction or advice for how to approach life and its inevitable departures: "Be together; eat, dance, despair, / Sleep, be threatened, endure." The stark commandments acknowledge the full range of human experience, from joy to despair. Yet, it is the instruction to "be insolent" and to "be mad" that strikes a particularly poignant note. The speaker advises to break away from convention, to defy expectations, and above all, to protect the sacredness of personal experience.

The concluding lines leave the reader with a note of uncertainty: "go away without fire or lantern / Let there be some uncertainty about your departure." This seems to say that the nature of departure, like much of life, should remain ungraspable, undefined. Perhaps, in that uncertainty lies the truest form of freedom, one that even the constraints of memory cannot inhibit.

Thus, in "Words for Departure," Bogan takes us on an emotional and philosophical journey that raises more questions than it answers, beautifully encapsulating the vagaries of the human condition. She leaves us to ponder the complexities of our relationships, the limits of memory, and the necessity of making peace with uncertainty, as we navigate through the labyrinth of human experience.

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