Jay Macpherson

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In the Whale's Belly: Jay Macpherson's Poetry

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Superficially, there seem to be some obvious differences between The Boatman and Welcoming Disaster. The second in some ways seems much "simpler." It is my purpose here to explore some of the similarities and differences….

As Reaney makes clear, the central myth of The Boatman is that of the ark [see excerpt above]. The ark appears to contain us, as though we were trapped in the belly of some monstrous creature, and its contents appear to be hopelessly miscellaneous; but properly perceived, Man, in fact, contains the ark, and its contents are ordered…. (p. 54)

Noah's salvaging operations at the time of the flood correspond to the activity of the poet, the man who perceives or "dreams" and thus makes "a Cosmos of miscellany." In other words, Noah, Endymion (the sleeping shepherd) and the poet merge into one another. The type of the poet is, of course, Orpheus; and Narcissus, Orpheus and Psyche are interconnected figures. Narcissus is not seen in a negative light by Jay Macpherson. He also is the type of the poet, and the elegiac Orpheus engages in the same activity. But the poet as an Orpheus or as a Psyche are conceptions that are of greater importance to the second book (Welcoming Disaster) than to the first, because both stories contain an element that is missing in the stories of the other figures. Both Orpheus and Psyche have to make a journey underground. Redemption is no longer a matter of starting with the world of the fall and gradually proceeding upwards. In the second book it becomes necessary to hit bottom and then to make the journey up with a fully regained or "half-regained Eurydice." Now the problem is not simply to get the animals outside, but to find the way to that perception again, the source of dreaming…. (pp. 54-5)

[As] Reaney makes clear about The Boatman, the separation of the sexes corresponds to the separation between Man and Nature…. In The Boatman it is enough to say that in a fallen world all attempts at union are bound to be somewhat unsatisfactory…. In Welcoming Disaster the corpses that result from this disjunction have to be recognized and acknowledged. They have to be given their due. It is only then that they can in any way be recovered. "Naked spectres, come for shrouding, / Those I failed and snubbed and crossed, / In the deadly waters crowding: / Angel, let not one be lost." In The Boatman the Ark appears simply as a much misunderstood creature that has been needlessly at odds with Man: "Why did your spirit / Strive so long with me?" In Welcoming Disaster it is the self itself that is lost, and that is the corpse that must be recovered.

The obvious place to go looking for corpses is, of course, the world of the dead, the Kingdom of Hades, the world undersea, the world of memory, the world of the past. This is the world that Welcoming Disaster is primarily concerned with. Noah the boatman can be turned quite easily into a fisherman, and this is, in fact, done in The Boatman, but the action is kindly rather than expiatory. To restate the matter, Noah is not a diver. Again, sleep imagery can be used to point the contrast between a drugged sleep and the sleep of the dreamer who sees with the third eye of real perception. This also is done in The Boatman, but in Welcoming Disaster the world of nightmare must first be explored. It becomes necessary to come to terms with or at least to face the past before the process of dreaming can begin again…. The descent into the kingdom of Hades is not a search for the waters of forgetfulness, but for the source of dreams, for, in a sense, "pools where I fished with jamjars for minnows," for "strangeness of water." Rivers are lifegiving, the sea is destructive. (In "Revelations" there is no more sea.) The boatman appears as a type of Charon. The corpses to be brought back are their own, the kid and the teddy bear (doll-god). This is, in fact, done, and expiation is achieved by a kind of acceptance of wrongs done and wrongs endured. The prayer to "infallibly restore my share in perdition" is granted. (pp. 55-6)

In Welcoming Disaster there are two kinds of movements. The first of these is concerned with the two lower levels, and the five sections of the book indicate the pattern. It is after a descent into the underworld that it is possible to return to the ordinary world of everyday life, the world in which "Some are plain lucky—we ourselves among them: / Houses with books, with gardens, all we wanted, / Work we enjoy, with colleagues we feel close to—/ Love we have, even."…

While, in one sense, there is a movement from the fallen world to the world of nightmare and back again to the daylight world, there is another kind of movement as well. To put it simply: If you dig deep enough, the way down becomes the way up, and you eventually see the stars. (p. 56)

It is evident, of course, that the ark for Jay Macpherson represents not a withdrawal into isolation, but a merger into a community, a sealing of the "rift in Being," the externalization of the dream. (p. 57)

[Placed] side by side, The Boatman and Welcoming Disaster reveal that the distance between the mythopoeic and the familiar is less great than might be supposed. (p. 58)

Suniti Namjoshi, "In the Whale's Belly: Jay Macpherson's Poetry," in Canadian Literature, No. 79, Winter, 1978, pp. 54-9.

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