Writing the Rain

Mary Austin’s acknowledgment of the native subconscious power of Amerind verse must have been a revelation in 1923. It overwhelms me now. There’s a scientific understanding tempered by true respect. In so doing she attempts to reach the Dawn of poetry.

The Amerind makes poetry because he believes it to be good for him. He makes it because he believes it a contribution to the well-being of his group. He makes it to put himself in sympathy with the wokonda, the orenda or god-stuff which he conceives to be to some degree in every created thing. Finally—an on almost every occasion—he makes it to affect objects that are removed from him in the dimension of time and space.

This affectivesness is secured by two processes, by the subjective coordination of the major rhythms involved, into a rhythmic unit, and the objective coordination of the movements involved, by mimesis…

…This faculty of creative imitation must have been immensely more active in the Dawn Man than in us. One supposes a period of mimetic activity similar to the period of mimetic activity in children… The Dawn Man did not understand rain as we understand it, but he had an acute power of appreciating all the visual and auditory accompaniments of rain, and of mimetically reproducing them. This is the content of Aristotle’s “imitation,” a “making” into which entered the three factors which are the essentials of Amerind verse; internal rhythms, coordinated by the prevailing motor habit, external rhythm subjectively coordinated, realization by means of creative mimesis.

This is great groundbreaking stuff. But she continues:

Or if we wish to present these factors in modern American terms we have, as the essentials of genuinely native poetry; a motor habit set up by democratic, constructive labor; subjective coordination of the rhythmic forms of the American scene; realization of the meaning of the American experience in terms of activity.

Here I believe Austin takes a wrong turn in accordance with that idealistic Adamic streak that runs through her (part of our culture I suppose) thought. For example: “democratic, constructive labor:” Was there ever such an animal? An America that had grew wealthy on the backs of cheap immigrant labor? Or the America that was revealing itself in Henry Ford’s factories: mass production with robotic labor. Or maybe it’s the 21st century specialization of service (do you want fries with that) labor? Rhythmic forms of the American scene? Gridlock? Realization of the American experience?

No. It’s as if she walks towards the edge of the Grand Canyon, but stops to catch a ride to Disneyland instead. Her diagnosis is wonderful (Chris you are right) and is worthy of the tradition of Emerson and Thoreau; her prescription though is that of a Norman Rockwell. I appreciate the former and just will have to go somewhere else, a Canada of poetics so to speak, for the latter.

Related post: It's a Fine Line in America