A C T A U N I V E R S I T Ä T I S L O D Z I E N S I S
FO LIA L IT T E RA R IA 36, 1994
Je rzy Jarniewicz
THE POET AND THE SHAMAN
IN THE PRO PH ETIC BOOK BY CRAIG RAINE
The Prophetic B ook, consisting o f seven p arts and the a u th o r’s no tes, was first published in bo o k form in a limited edition in 1988', yet most. o f its sections had previously appeared independently in various periodicals over a sp a n o f several years2. T his m ay suggest th a t originally the p arts o f The Prophetic B ook were w ritten as separate poems in their own rig h t3. A nd indeed they succeed as such. H owever, the relatively self-contained n a tu re o f the p arts o f this long poem an d th eir indep ende nt publishing h isto ry d o n o t m ean th a t The Prophetic B ook has a loose, undefined stru ctu re. O n the co n tra ry , the re ad er ca n easily identify a set o f m o tifs which organize the sequence as a whole, give it a rig oro u s integrity and shape, and establish recu rring , m eaningful patterns. T h e poem astonishes the reader with its variety o f m odes, m o o d s, themes. O ne can find here a love lyric and a narrativ e sequence, a q u asi-d oc um e ntary rep o rt and an unabash ed display o f im aginative faculty, autobiographical passages and the use o f persona. The Prophetic Book works as a whole, the integrity o f which is pro duced by the m o tif o f a jo u rn ey - it is a jo u rn e y th ro u g h tim e an d space, into o n e’s own past and in to h istory , a jo u rn e y th ro u g h different stages and various aspects o f h u m an life. T h e concept o f the po et a n d the sh am an belongs to this m otif.
’ C. R a i n e , The Prophetic Book, Correspondance des Arts, Łódź 1988.
2 P art I, slightly changed, was published first in “ London Review of Books” , 20 September 1984. Part VI, A Chest o f Drawers, originally appeared in “ Ploughshares” 1987, Vol. 13, N o. 4.
3 D uring a BBC R adio 3 broadcast, 23 O ctober 1989, Craig Raine said that "The Prophetic
Book was not planned, though it has a coherent plan” . According to his words, the last pa rt
was “composed years in advance o f the poem it now concludes” . The program me produced by Judith Bumpus featured a reading o f The Prophetic Book by Alan Bennett, Stephanie Cole, the author and his eldest son, Isaac.
T h e first p ar t o f The Prophetic B ook, which bears the sam e title as the w hole poem , is addressed to a yet-unborn child o f the poet (his second son, M oses):
I will grant you the world that is taken for granted: the turban in a tangerine, a snooker table, say,
with six suspensory bandages, the lemon squeezer
in the m en’s urinal.
T he w orld th at the poet is ready to offer to the child-to-be is b oth the real world which the child will soon have to co nfro nt and the w hole poem , The Prophetic B o ok, w hich opens w ith this statem ent. T he poet-as-father will g rant the w orld by giving life to th e new hu m an being; the father-as-poet will gran t the w orld by show ing his son “ the extrao rd in ary variety o f ord inary life on ea rth ” 4, by teaching him how to delight in it. Expectations which the phrase in the first line arouses, are im m ediately defeated by the second line, which by skilful handling o f an idiomatic expression undermines the seemingly unam bigu-ous statem ent o f the previbigu-ous line. B oth verbs o f the idiom “ take for g ran ted ” contribute to this effect o f defeated expectancy: the gift th at the poet intends to give is the gift usually taken, not given. It becomes problem atic then, whether it is a gift a t all, since the d o n o r disappears - there is no place for generosity, good will o r love th a t the act o f giving implies. T here is only the readiness to take w hat exists w ithin the reach o f any hu m an being. T here is no need to grant anything th at can simply be taken. Yet, in the opening o f the poem, w hat is taken and accessible to anyone turns into w hat is given, into som ething th a t is precious and rare.
By pu nn in g on the w ord “ g ra n t” the poem - already in the first two lines - co ntrasts tw o attitud es, seemingly linked b u t as different as giving and taking. W hile the first line introduces the idea o f gift and generosity, the second line implies such concepts as ordinariness and obviousness. A lth ou gh the idiom atic phrase suggests th a t the gift (i.e. the w orld) is n ot to be questioned (since it is taken for granted), its appearance in the clause next to the solem n, dignified declaration, “ I will g ran t you the w orld” , underm ines its m eaning an d invites scrutiny. It is only then th a t the m ost ordinary w orld will show its extra ord inary m anifestations.
T he whole first section o f the poem is composed o f a catalogue o f m undane things5. T h e m ain feature o f this catalogue is the hap hazard, rando m selection
4 Craig R aine on BBC R adio 3, 23 O ctober 1989.
5 The use of the catalogue in the poetry of Craig Raine is further discussed in my book
o f the objects m entioned in the following stanzas. T he list evokes an im pression o f chaos, so pow erful th a t it m ay even seem in a p p ro p riate to use th e w ord “ selection” in this context. T here appears to be no principle ac cording to w hich these, and no other, objects have been m entioned. E ach im age is an isolated act o f perception which seems n o t to lead anyw here. T h e list o f things is subject neith er to the principle o f sim ilarity, cohesion, co ntiguity, n o r d ocs it follow any form o f identifiable association. T h e u ltim ate effect o f the list is th a t o f chaos, anarchy , diso rder, or - to p ut it m ore positively - variety, opulence, m ultiplicity and richness. T he w orld o f gifts.
I t is n o t by chance th a t the poem sta rts unasham edly w ith the p ro n o u n “ I ” . T h e opulence evoked by item izing th e o rd ina ry world is in the eye o f the beholder. T he catalogue o f objects is also the catalogu e o f individual acts o f perception. T h e poem celebrates the w orld taken for granted , b u t even m o re so it celebrates the w orld which can be given. T he difference betw een the passive, im personal m eaning o f “ is ta k e n ” and the active personal “ I will g ran t y ou ” po in ts to the a ttitu d e which is in fact the real subject o f th e first p a rt o f the poem : th e creative rendering o f the m ultifaceted world w hich tu rn s it into a source o f inexhaustable surprise and delight. It is m em ory and im agin ation w hich enliven the w orld, changing the com m onp lace list into the m o st un usual kaleidoscope o f m o m en tary revelations6. If in the first im age o f the poem one reads ab o u t “ th e tu rb a n in a tang erine” , it is no t so m u ch the intriguing shape o f the fruit th a t is celebrated b ut the gift o f the eye, o r the “ I ” , w hich can m ak e th e connection betw een the tw o objects. T hese acts o f perception w hich find links betw een the m o st d istan t, unrelated things, and w hich c on stitute the m ost essential p a rt o f R aine’s M artian P oetics7, are instances o f a continuing process o f confronting th e w orld w ithout th e help o f received ideas, clichés, and stereotypes. T he ord er w hich is given can be rejected (or suspended) in the nam e o f new, fresh, bold perception. P a ra d o x i-cally, in R aine’s vision th e op positio n betw een o rd er and chaos is solved by choosing the latter. It is chaos th a t guarantees freedom and dem ands a creati-ve ap p ro ach . O rder, w hich having categorized the w orld m akes life easier, actually extinguishes m a n ’s n a tu ral in clination to qu estio n and rely on o n e’s im m ediate sensations, on on e’s personal, if m om entary, tru th . R aine w ro te once th a t he likes “ ar t w hich pays atten tion , which rem em bers, w hich records, w hich prefers w hat is actually tru e to w hat is m erely ideal, w hich im poses chaos on o rd e r”8. T he p o et’s attack on o rde r is n ot a nihilistic one: it does no t
6 See also my article: Inne spojrzenie Craiga Raine'a, “ A kcent” 1988, n r 1, republished in: C. R a i n e , Księga proroctw i inne wiersze, Biblioteka, Łódź 1992.
7 The tendency started by C raig Raine was labelled by the critics M artian Poetry after R aine’s popular poem A Martian Sends A Postcard Home.
* Craig R aine’s statem ent published in the British Council pam phlet from Contemporary
claim th a t being is in fact nothingness and hu m an existence has no m eaning. C haos in R ainc’s vision becomes a precondition o f active life, which is capab le o f evoking pleasure. T he irony lies in the fact th at R a in c’s preference fo r chaos leads him to a position very rare in con tem porary poetry: the celebration s o f life, com posing “ hym ns to Life or N atu re, [...] the inex-haustible source o f all sights, whose bou nty the poet harvests and transm utes in to w o rds” 9.
R a in e’s in trod u ctio n o f the cataloguc-form in the first p art o f The Prophetic Book, as well as in the sixth section, displays all the essential features o f a catalogue: it is a list o f objects which arc utterly unrelated except for the fact th at they ap pe ar on the sam e list. T hese objects belong to the m o st distant categories - n a tu ra l p roducts ap pear next to th e produ cts o f civilization (tangerine and snooker table), fam iliar objects m eet exotic ones (K entish hopfields and flam ingoes), high culture is follow ed by low, m un dan e pro du cts (G oethe and h ardw are store), the m in iature is listed to gether w ith the huge (scarab beetle and steam -roller), hum an beings with inanim ate things (ballerina and sellotape).
T h ere can be no d o u b t as to the identity o f the speaker o f the poem . T h e “ I ” th a t opens the poem is the person w ho will gran t the w orld, i.e. w ho will offer new images o f things “ taken for gran ted ” . T he w orld offered by the speaker is prim arily w ha t follows after his initial declaration: a sequence o f im ages th a t build up The Prophetic Book. T he “ I ” th a t grants the w orld is the “ I ” tha t grants the poem . T he speaker is the poet, the w o rdm onger. N o t surprisingly, already in the second stanza he turns aw ay from the w orld o f objects tow ards the w orld o f nam es, w ords - to language itself:
You will need to know the names of stone:
Tayton, Clipsham, A nstrude, Besace, H eadington, W heatley, Pérou, and then Savonnieres Courteraie which is quarried at Meuse.
T he variety o f the w orld is celebrated here as is the extrao rd in ary variety o f the language w hich is used to describe the opulence o f the w orld. T he sequence o f nine nam es o f stone is like a collage o f a bstract form s - these w ords seem to get free from the objects they denote and exist in their own right, as ph onic and visual signs. T he nam es of stone quoted above are different labels o f w hat is often taken (for granted) as one thing - the stone (notice the use o f the Singular). T he seemingly uniformed, undifferentiated phenom eno n m ultiplies as the result o f nam ing and o f applying language.
T h is particularly hum an activity o f nam ing, so closcly related to the poetic practice, soon reappears. T h e fifth stan za brings an even longer ca talogue o f nam es given to different kinds o f sheep:
I will bring you the beauty o f facts: Southdow n, D alesbred, D artm oor,
D erbyshire, G ritstone, Bluefaced Ixicester, Herdwick, Hill R adnor, Devon Longwool, Beulah Speckled-Face, Oxford Down, Welsh M ountain, N orth Country Cheviot, do no t exhaust the names o f our sheep.
T h ese lines m ay recall the first act o f nam ing after T h e C reatio n, w hen m an , assisting G od , gave nam es to all the anim als. T his n am ing continues: as previously, the effect is th a t o f m ultiplication, a sudden explosion o f variety, w hich earlier m ight have been th o u gh t to be un der c on trol and lim ited. T h e sim ple w ord “ sheep” conveniently reduces the opulence o f reality, m asks the chaos o f m om entary revelations. It can be observed how often R aine m akes use o f individual nam es in his poem s, o r o f w ords o f specialized register, denotin g small classes o f objects, functioning nearly as p ro p e r nam es. It m ay be th a t the task o f the poet to d ay is to look for uniqueness - in his strife to talk ab o u t individual phen om ena th e p oet parado xically goes against the n atu re o f the very m edium he uses, language, w hich w orks according to the principle o f generalization. E xcept for the extrem e case o f nam es (w hich den o te only one object), w ords reflect the m echanism o f classifying and categorizing, i.e. ordering. T h e p o e t’s urge to observe uniqueness is at the sam e tim e a gesture d isturb ing the received orde r and a step tow ards chaos: an u nstructured am algam o f distinct, un iqu e objects.
T he figure o f th e S ham an, altho ug h it appears only in the fo u rth p art o f the poem , is beside the P oet an o th e r central figure o f The Prophetic B ook. It determ ines the struc ture o f the whole poem , which develops th ro u g h seven stages - starting from birth (P art I), passing th ro u g h the underw orld areas o f Sheol (P a rt II) and L im bo (P art III), reaching the m o m entary P aradise (P art V), only to fall back into the realm o f D eath in th e p a rt called C hest o f Drawers (P art VI). It should be rem em bered th a t in all sh am anic m ythologies the m o tif o f the jo urne y, both to Hell and to H eaven, plays a fundam en tal role.
A ccordin g to th e beliefs o f th e S iberian tribes, where the idea o f sham anism com es from , th e S ham an is a m ed iator betw een the h um an w orld and the w orld o f the spirits10. H e can fulfil his fu nction because o f his ability to travel to and from the oth er w orld. T h e jo u rn e y takes place
10 М . М. К o ś k o , Mitologia ludów Syberii, W AiF, W arszawa 1990, p. 25.
du rin g the act o f self-ecstasy, w hen the sham an beats his drum , and m u rm u rs unintelligible, yet sacred w ords. T he jo urn ey is often u nderta ken in o rd er to retrieve the souls captu red by evil spirits. If som ebody falls ill or dies, it is understood as a clear sign th a t his soul has been captured. T h e sham an has the pow er to go to the realm o f the spirits and to n egotiate
w ith them the re turn o f the captive soul.
T h e sham anic pow er is granted to the chosen few by gods o r spirits. In m any Siberian m yths the external sign o f being chosen is some kind o f physical defect11. O ne can be initiated into the sham anic rites also by o ne’s ancestors, form er sham ans. T he process o f becom ing a sham an consists o f several stages du ring which the soul o f the fu ture sham an is tak en by evil spirits to the underw orld, where he is beheaded and cut into pieces by the three haggard devils. H is limbs are scattered all over the place, his brain is licked by evil spirits, his bones are broken. T hen the devils collect the scattered bones and fragm ents o f m eat, strengthen them and jo in them ag ain 12. T he newly created body, w hich has com e from the dead, acquires sham anic pow ers. T h e archetypal p attern o f birth -th ro ug h -d eath is recreated.
T h e sham an, w hose role is to heal diseased bodies and possessed souls by m aintaining personal contact w ith the world of the spirits, can perform his task only w hen he him self has been form erly subjected to the p artic u lar type o f suffering. H is pow er to help the troubled m em bers o f his com m unity is gained in the course o f his jo urne y throu g h pain, illness, death. In ord e r to cure, the sham an him self has to be w ounded, as th e title o f J o an H a lifa x ’s b o ok suggests13. Eliade describing the sham anistic process speaks o f “ abreaction” and draw s parallels betw een the sham an w ho relives th e events and the patien t d urin g the psychoanalytical trea tm e nt w ho “ intensively relives the initial situ atio n from w hich his disturbance stem s” 14. Ju st as the patient co nfronted w ith th e ro ots o f his/her illness can overcom e the problem , so can the sham an defeat som eone’s troub les by identifying him self with the suffering person.
T h e sham an from the central p a rt o f The Prophetic B ook is the p o et’s fath er, to w hom R aine had earlier devoted the prose section, The Silver Plate, from his third collection o f poem s R ich '5. O ne can read here ab o ut his fa th er’s num erous occupations. In the course of the 1930s this extraordinary
11 Ibid., p. 125.
12 See: M . E l i a d e , Initiation, rites, sociétés secretes, Paris 1976 (fragments translated into Polish in “ Pismo” 1988, n r 5, s. 64-70, also other texts by Eliade published in the same issue of “Pismo” , p. 71-96). M . M. K o s k o , op. cit., p. 128.
13 In Notes on The Prophetic Book the author mentions among other sources a book by J. H alifax, Shaman. The Wounded Healer.
14 See Notes on The Prophetic Book. The quotation comes from M . E l i a d e , Shamanism, A rchaic Techniques o f Ecstasy, Princeton 1974.
m an m anag ed to w ork as “ a painter and d ec o rato r, plum ber, electrician, publican and bo xer” 16, turnin g later - already d uring the p o et’s life - into a faith healer. In his autob iogra phical piece R aine writes ab o u t faith-healing seances w hich to o k place in their house after his fa ther had been told by a visiting m edium th a t he had a gift. P arallels betw een the sham anic figure an d his fath e r go beyond th e pow er to heal which they w ere b o th believed to possess. R ain e’s fath er was “ the w ounded healer” , as Jo a n H alifax says, “ the healer w ith head w ou nd s” , as R aine puts it in the poem . A lth ou gh the details rem ain u nk now n, R ain e’s father was invalided d uring the w ar by an explosion in a m unitio ns factory. T he accident had severe consequences: he h a d to be operated u p on “ to rem ove bits o f shrapnel from his triple- fractured skull” 17. E ver since he has suffered from epilepsy. In The Silver P late R aine also recalls his fathe r talking in his sleep: “ M y fa th er often talks in his sleep and som etim es he speaks fluently in a foreign language. W e used to think it m ust be P olish because tw o o th er patients in ad jac en t beds w ere P oles” 18. T h e sam e scene is recreated in The P rophetic B o o k :
He had returned from the dead with the gill o f tongues:
he spoke to the dark beyond the bedroom walls, rapid as a Polish auctioneer [...]
O th er details from the p o e t’s childhood connected w ith his fa th er give fu rth e r reasons for th e S h am an parallel. A ccording to the stories th a t his father often told (and he was a perfect raconteur), he was sem i-conscious d u rin g the brain surgery and “ rem em bers the w hirr and bite o f the saw th a t to o k o ff the to p o f his skull. T hey rem oved p a rt o f his brain and inserted a silver p late” 19. T his account m ay bring to m ind the process o f sham anic initiation: “ th e evil spirits carry the future s h a m a n ’s soul to the u nderw o rld [...] H ere the sham an undergoes his initiation. T he spirits cut o ff his head, which they set aside (for th e can dida te m u st w atch his dism em berm ent w ith his ow n eyes)” 20. R ain e’s description o f his fa th e r’s fits echoes the accounts o f the sham anic trance: “ H e spits w ith co ntem p t an d th en begins to w him per suddenly an d pick things o ff his body w ith a disgusted expression on his face. W e thin k these m u st be bits o f flesh”21.
T he cen tral sectio n o f The Prophetic B ook consists o f a series o f rem iniscences from R a in e’s bo yhood. T he figure o f his fathe r, takin g the
16 Ibid., p. 43. 17 Ibid., p. 44. 111 Ibid., p. 44-45. 19 Ibid., p. 45.
20 Eliade’s account quoted in Notes on the Prophetic Book. 21 C. R a i n e , Rich..., p. 45.
form o f the sham an, appears no sooner than in the second half o f the section. T he whole p art records and recreates the journey into the p o et’s past “ in search o f m y s e lf’, which leads to the father. E arlier, a different father appears, F a th er W atson. Seen at the m om ent o f the p o et’s first com m union (a version o f an in itiation rite), F a th e r W atson proves to be an unw anted presence; associated with decay, illness, age. T h e speaker ca n n o t accept him as his father (“ I faltered on F a th e r” ), having suddenly realized the pow er and the true m eaning o f th a t word. T he real father is discovered later, in the act o f self-discovery. He com es in answ er to the basic existential question, W ho am I:
I am only my father,
the healer with head wounds, who takes on pains in his sleep.
T he to tal identification o f the son w ith his father occurs in the last stan za where the speaker re-experiences his father’s fit of epilepsy as if it were his own. This identification w ith the epileptic father (acting out a sham anic trance) also contains m eanings o ther than the discovery o f the so n’s self in his fa th er’s idiosyncrasies. If the father is a shaman, then the poet who becomes his father is also a shaman. T he sham anic power, the gift, is passed on to the poet in the act o f abreacting; the son relieves his father’s illness by taking on his pains and by being struck by a fit o f epilepsy. T he son to w hom sham anic pow ers are granted in P a rt IV is the father from the opening section w ho passes on to his yet u nbo rn son the poetic gift o f acceptance. T he prophecy (future) o f the first p a rt o f the poem is com pleted by the history (past) o f P art IV.
T he poet w ho sees him self as the sham an travels th ro ugh different regions o f the hum an condition. In the poem the spiritual w orld and the underw orld visited by S iberian sham ans in their journeys take on the form o f various condition o f hum an life - hope and expectations before the b irth o f the p o e t’s son (P art I), the pain and agony experienced by a B irkenau survival (P art II), exile, alienation and disease in the biography o f G eorge K a tk o v (P art III), the search for identity in recalling scenes from R ain e’s childhood and m em ories o f his parents (P art IV), love (P art V), and the dea th o f Seamus H eaney’s m oth er a t Bellaghy (P art VI). T h e identification o f the poet w ith the sham an implies th a t the m eaning o f poetry stem s from the p o e t’s ability to co nfron t all aspects o f life. T he variety o f the w orld as exemplified in the static catalogue o f objects from P art I has its dynam ic co u n terp art in the m any-faceted phenom enon o f life.
In the deep trance into which the sham an falls the difference betw een the internal and the external w orld disappears22. T he jo urne y to o ther
regions o f being is also a jo u rn ey into o n e ’s ow n self, into o n e’s p ast. T he identification w ith th e w hole universe which takes place d uring the sham anic ecstasy, is possible since the sham an relieves the lives o f o th e r people. H ence the po et w ho acquired the sham anic gift can say “ I am only m y fa th e r” . H ence in P a rt II he can a d o p t the perso na o f a Jew ish survivor from a con c en tra tion cam p and w rite her m em ories in first person n arratio n .
T h e m o tif o f the jo u rn e y, derived here from the sham anic m yth olo gy, echoes an o th er jo u rn ey u n d erta ken by one o f the g reatest poets o f history, the fath e r o f poets, D a nte , and recalls his attem p t to com pose a n o th e r P ro ph etic B ook. D a n te ’s jo u rn e y to th e underw orld, in w hich he was accom panied by Vergil, also had curative powers: they travelled th ro u g h Hell in ord er to free D a n te o f the tem ptatio n to sin; while their jo u rn ey to P u rg a to ry w as to purify his soul o f even the capacity o f erro r. Seeing shamanism in terms o f poctic creation, as R aine does in his poem , is a decision th a t finds justific ation in E liade’s inte rp retatio n o f sh am an ic ecstasy in his w ork Sham anism , Archaic Techniques o f E cstasy23. Elliade draw s atten tio n to unintelligible sou nds produced by the sh am an in a tran ce an d suggests th a t this “ preecstatic eu p h o ria is one o f the universal sources o f lyrical p o etry ” 24. T h e sham an w ho sum m ons the spirits, beats his drum and im itates the language o f anim als falls into a state conducivc to “ dy nam ic linguistic creativity an d the rhythm s o f lyrical p o etry ” . T he p o e t’s jo u rn e y in to his ow n p ast du rin g which he discovers his identity w ith th e fath er, tu rn s th us in to a jo u rn ey to the origins o f poetry. T he gift o f tongu es w hich his fathe r possessed and passed over to his son, com es from the realm o f the dead: it is b o th a gift from o n e ’s ancestors (echoing the gift from P a rt I) and a gift from th e spirits, from those w ho belong to a different o rd e r o f things.
In the state o f ecstasy (cf. poetic fury) the sha m an , like the po et, leaves the b onds o f the physical w orld and exercises his liberty. T his is a d e p a rtu re from a pre-established ord er w hich characterizes everyday life and a tu rn to w ard s th e form lessness - to the chaos o f sacred, m eaningless w ords and to th e state w here all things, high and low, external and in tern al, p ast and fu tu re coexist w ith o ut any o f the barriers th a t could separate them . It is in this sphere, in the sphere o f chaos exemplified in the catalogues o f P a rt I, th a t all the w orld is experienced as one, as sacred (i.e. im p o rtan t), ju st for the very reason th a t it is. In place o f the categorized an d classified w orld the p o e t introduces the flexible w orld o f chaos w here all th ings are equally im p o rtan t and can be linked - at will - w ith the m o st d is ta n t an d seemingly alien objects. T h e idea o f the oneness o f the w orld (which
23 M . E l i a d e , Shamanism...
how ever ca n n o t preclude its phenom enal variety) com es as a conclusion from R ain e ’s poetic practice o f “ seeing likeness w here no one has seen it previously” 25.
Chest o f Drawers, the sixth p art o f The Prophetic B ook recalls section 1 with its catalogue-like stru ctu re and a long list o f M a rtia n images w hich evoke the opulence o f the surround ing w orld. T he im ages are as striking as in the best fragm ents o f R aine’s poetry, delighting the reader with witty aperccptions: “T he sea-horse saxo phon es” , “T h e th alid om ide seal” “ this velvet d a c h s h u n d ’s m in iatu re M adam e R ćcam ier” . T his is a co ntinu ation o f the w orld taken for g ranted an d granted by the p oet to his son in P a rt I. R aine said th a t Chest o f Drawers is a “m irro r im age” o f P art I, “an itemized account o f the earth whose sum is d e a th ” 26. C hest o f Drawers is dedicated to the m em ory o f Seam us H e aney ’s m o th e r - Bellaghy m entioned in the poem is the p o et’s birthplace. D e ath an d birth m eet here again, as they do several tim es in th e w hole poem (e.g. in Sheol). In th e opening section the p aren t (father) was w aiting for the birth o f his child. H ere it is the child w ho is expecting the death o f a parent (his m other). T he fath er from P a rt I is a poet, ju st as the child from P art VI is a poet: b o th o f them are w aiting for the tw o m o st critical m o m ents in hum an life. T h e first points tow ards the future, the second to w ard s the past. T he “sam ple o f life” in Chest o f Drawers is n ot prom ised as it was at the beginning: now it com es “ ou t o f oblivion” . T he m om ent of death retrieves “these thousand th in g s” . W ith the end o f the w om an’s life the w hole w orld starts m ultiplying an d increasing, only to disap pe ar forever. T he m otionless eyes o f the p o et’s m other, the life-giver, m ean the end o f the prophecy. T he sh am an’s journey has reached its end, the b o o k has been read, the poem is over.
Institute o f English Studies University o f Łódź
Jerzy Jamiewicz
P O S TA Ć PO ETY I SZAM A NA W P O EM A C IE CHAIGA RAINE’A
K SIĘG A P R O R O C T W
C raig R aine, współczesny p oeta angielski, tw órca tzw. szkoły M arsjan, opublikow ał w 1988 r. siedmioczęściowy poem at Księga proroctw, n a który złożyły się utw ory pow stałe na przestrzeni kilku lat i prezentowane niezależnie w czasopismach literackich. G łów nym motywem
25 See note 9.
integrującym tych siedem wierszy jest motyw podróży poprzez różne stany ludzkiej egzystencji: przez nadzieję i rozpacz, cierpienie i miłość, narodziny i śmierć. M otyw podróży wywiedziony tu został z podań ludów syberyjskich, z mitologii szamańskiej. Szaman, jako pośrednik między światem ludzi a światem bogów i duchów , ma zdolność podróżow ania między tymi sferami. Aby posiąść swe nadprzyrodzone, uzdrowicielskie zdolności, szaman musi doświadczyć bólu i cierpienia, chorób i śmierci. Podróż szamana ma miejsce w trakcie ekstatycznego transu, w którym szaman gra na bębnie, naśladuje głosy zwierząt i rozm aw ia z duchami tajemnym językiem. M ircea Eliade, którego prace stanowiły inspirację dla Raine’a, uważa szamańskie „kam łanie” za źródło poezji lirycznej, przez co jeszcze bardziej zbliża postać szamana do postaci poety.
W poemacie R aine’a szamanem jest ojciec poety, uzdrowiciel i epileptyk, któremu udało się umknąć śmierci. W środkowej części poematu poeta, niczym szaman, odbywając podróż w głąb siebie, odkrywa, że jest „tylko własnym ojcem” . Całkowicie się z nim utożsam iając, przejmuje ojcowskie upośledzenie, a wraz z nim „szam ańską” moc - moc rozm aw iania z duchami, władzę nad słowem i umiejętność podróżow ania po różnych regionach ludzkiego losu.
