With feathery sorcery; muzzle the note
With hurting love; the music that they wrote
Bewitch, bewilder. Qualify to sing
Threadwise. Devise no salt, no hempen thing
For the dear instrument to bear. Devote
The bow to silks and honey. Be remote
A while from malice and from murdering.
But first to arms, to armor. Carry hate
In front of you and harmony behind.
Be deaf to music and to beauty blind.
Win war. Rise bloody, maybe not too late
For having first to civilize a space
Wherein to play your violin with grace.
–Gwendolyn Brooks, 1949
This poem caught my eye because it was confusing to understand at first. However, I really liked the rhythm and rhyme, the way the sentences are finshed in the next line. I was also caught up in the imagery of the fiddling and then the contrast with war. The more I read this, the more I like it.
My understanding of this poem is that one needs to fight in order to have “a space wherein to play your violin with grace”, the violin representing the flourishing of art. Indeed, art flourishes during times of peace and not war. What’s interesting is how the author tells us “first fight. Then fiddle” when she describes fiddling first and then war. To me, it seems there is an irony here, where Brooks tells us during fiddling to be “remote…from malice and from murdering” and during fighting to be “beauty blind”- essentially to separate the two aspects in mind, yet there is a connection between them. The fiddler must “civilize a space” by killing people- not a very civil act. One must have fighting to have fiddling, and one’s desire to fiddle creates the necessity to fight. One cannot truly separate fighting and fiddling.
Alliteration: “First fight. Then fiddle.” (1), “slipping string” (1), “Bewitch, bewilder.” (4), and “beauty blind” (11).
Oxymoron: “Hurting love” (3) emphasizes the difference in violence (fight) and music (fiddle).
Sonnet: 14 lines that follow the pattern abbaabba cddc ee in single stanza form. Symbol: Fiddling represents peace and the time when art can flourish.
Please comment on this poem. Also, why do you think the poet tells us to "first fight, then fiddle" but describes the act of fiddling before fighting in this poem?
ReplyDeleteLike Emmy, I found this poem intriguing because of its puzzling nature. I think Brooks may write that we should “fight first, then fiddle” but present these actions in the opposite order because she suggests that passion is what will drive us to fight. Before we can fight, we need to know what we are fighting for and feel strongly about our cause for fighting. For example, Brook writes that music should be played with “hurting love” (3). This oxymoron suggests that we must love art so much that it makes our hearts overflow with passion. Only once we have this passion can we turn “to armor” (9) to defend what we love to do. The fight starts once we establish this passion, but we can only truly enjoy it after it has been protected.
ReplyDeleteI think she presents the Fiddle before the Fight because ending with the Fight is more memorable. The poem starts out with describing the beautiful music and positive connotations with it. By building up this sense of beauty and live, the fight seems more dramatic. The change in topics is highlighted by the extreme change in emotion
ReplyDeleteMy first thought was actually the same as Pat - perhaps she presents the Fiddle first so that the Fight is fresh in our mind. She paints a beautiful melody in the first half of the poem and almost gets us comfortable, and filled with this passion that is then channeled right into the fighting half of the poem. These two sections greatly contrast each other as well, revving the reader up to go and do something with that passion. The alliteration in this poem is also sweet, just saying... First fight then fiddle sounds pretty legit.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of "Dont ask for permission, ask for forgiveness"... just a side thought.
i'm tiiiiiired, goodnight everyone!
I think the poem is presented in reverse to the command "fight first, then fiddle" to demonstrate that fighting and fiddling, or war and peace, are cyclical in nature and that one always follows another; therefore, from her beginning with the description of fiddling, we can imply that the speaker had to fight for it beforehand, although it may be omitted from the poem and is only suggested. The speaker outright tells us that fighting precedes fiddling, but through the order of the poem she shows that fiddling, in turn, leads to fighting; eventually the initial peaceful fiddling described transforms into violence. Yet after the description of fighting, when the war has been won, the speaker attempts to justify the bloodshed by saying we have to "first civilize a space / Wherein to play your violin with grace". This final note implies that a period of fiddling will begin once more, now the space has been "civilized", and that the cycle of the poem will be repeated when that period, too, inevitably morphs into fighting once again.
ReplyDeleteAfter my first read of the poem, I thought of the poem as a procedure or list of commands, instructing the reader to follow these orders. The underlying relationship between fiddling and fighting provides an answer to the question why do we engage in war to being with? According to Brooks, fighting is necessary in order "to play your violin with grace" (line 14). However, despite the title of the poem, the content describes fiddling before fighting. I, initially, had the same interpretation as Kathleen: fiddling gives the person strength to fight because they then know what they are fighting for. The person's passion for music empowers the individual to go to war in which he or she will "Be deaf to music and to beauty blind" (line 11)in order to "Win war" (line 12). As I said previously, I first read the poem as a sequence, but after reading Nicky's interpretation, the poem being of cyclical nature, the title and content in the body not matching makes sense. The author implies that what she has written has taken place before, perhaps many times over, all with the purpose of restoring peace to allow art to flourish.
ReplyDelete