Critical Post: "The Figure a Poem Makes"

In Frost's essay, he says that poetry needs emotion, needs personality added by the author.  He states that a poem "begins in delight and ends in wisdom," and it seems to me that wisdom cannot be gleaned without the input of someone with experience, e.g. the poet himself.   Frost also says, "If it is a wild tune, it is a Poem," which I think definitely pertains to some of the Lawrence poems we read, particularly "Love on the Farm".  This poem is wild, in my opinion, because it has a raw, sexual undertone, with words like "throttling," "quivering," "plaintive," and lines like, "Spurts from the terror of his oncoming." This diction offers a pulsing, sensual, wild rhythm, which seems to fit Frost's description of what a poem ought to be.

Also, Frost discusses surprise by stating first, "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.  No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader." He seems to be saying that, in writing a poem, the poet should have no plan, nothing too mapped out, because if the poet isn't moved by his own work, it cannot be expected to convey emotion and to move an audience.  I think that DH Lawrence offers the reader quite a measure of surprise, giving descriptions fit for people and revealing that the subject described is actually a plant or an animal figure, for instance, "The woodbine creeps abroad/ Calling low to her lover/ The sun-lit flirt who all the day/ has poised above her lips in play/ and stolen kisses, shallow and gay."  This segment brings to mind an image of a beautiful girl, flirtatious, alluring.  However, it describes instead, a honeysuckle plant, growing in the sun.  Lawrence goes so far as to surprise the reader by giving the scene between the man and his wife;


"I hear his hand on the latch, and rise from my chair
Watching the door open; he flashes bare
His strong teeth in a smile, and flashes his eyes
In a smile like triumph upon me; then careless-wise
He flings the rabbit soft on the table board
And comes towards me: ah! the uplifted sword
Of his hand against my bosom! and oh, the broad
Blade of his glance that asks me to applaud
His coming! With his hand he turns my face to him
And caresses me with his fingers that still smell grim
Of the rabbit's fur! God, I am caught in a snare!
I know not what fine wire is round my throat;
I only know I let him finger there
My pulse of life, and let him nose like a stoat
Who sniffs with joy before he drinks the blood.

And down his mouth comes to my mouth! and down
His bright dark eyes come over me, like a hood
Upon my mind! his lips meet mine, and a flood
Of sweet fire sweeps across me, so I drown
Against him, die, and find death good."

This does a lot to surprise the reader, a sudden switch from animal sexuality to human sexuality, while still describing the humans with animal characteristics, e.g. "My pulse of life, and let him nose like a stoat/ Who sniffs with joy before he drinks the blood" and "I know not what fine wire is round my throat." I feel that Lawrence also surprises with subject matter by describing, in essence, the act of sex and orgasm, with the lines "...a flood/ Of sweet fire sweeps across me, so I drown/ Against him, die, and find death good."

These last two stanzas, in particular, do a good job of describing wild, surprising emotion and feeling.  I think that this sort of vivid description makes Lawrence a perfect example of what Frost expects a poet to be.