If this was my poetry exam, I would.............

If I were to have an exam on the poem Old Pond by Gary Snyder, I would approximately look at the following things:

(Before reading the commentary on it in Break Blow Burn by Camille Paglia, and after)

1. No complete sentences: adds to the actions and immediate reactions that the narrator has out in nature- they are just words that evoke images, and the simplicity of being out in nature- the important stuff, without all the useless words.

• "The words float dreamily free": it gives the first impression that the narrator sees: the "blue mountain white snow gleam"- all at once, however he sees it instantly. This is before the mind, the un-nature-ish part of humanity sorts it all into words and interprets. There is no civilization- just nature.

2. Structure: Two stanzas, each one beginning with two lines of the setting-
                     "blue mountain white snow gleam/ Through pine bulk and slender needle-sprays"
and is then followed by the indented part where the day is described-
                       "little hemlock half in shade, / ragged rocky skyline,"

It emphasizes the way the narrator views his day- he introduces the place, and then what he did- sleeping in a hemlock, looking at the skyline. This also adds to the poem's simplicity, of the beauty of being out in nature- no complication, and no worries.

• "Repudiating society's vanity and materialism, instead supporting a realignment of "self to cosmos".

3. Diction: The words help create an image of a beautiful day out in nature, of rest and adventure: the words have connotations that create imagery in our minds:
                   "the slender needle-sprays" make us think of traveling through the trees, and the "pine bulk" creates that forest-y smell.

• The "needle-sprays" can be in fact a metaphor for the "needles in the endless cycle of birth and death, where waste and fertility are often indistinguishable". I guess the needles represent how nature views how life should be- nothing is wasted, in an eternal circle. The circle of life.

                    the "nuthatch call", although I've never heard or even seen a nuthatch, still brings up a clear bird call in my mind.

• It marks the transition from just watching to action- nature itself is calling out to him and urging him to take part in its life. Instead of the "luxurious silence" of sleeping in a hammock, he swims, dives, scrambles... "The bird is the unembellished voice of nature itself"- I think the interesting part is that all of this takes place in "no more than moments".

Also, the use of "scrambling" and "dives" are good action words- I can feel and imagine the same action the narrator is describing.

And then there is the "naked bug/ with a white body and brown hair"- I think this is referring to a human: when described as a "naked bug" it can refer to how after spending the whole day immersed in nature, he has actually become a part of it, an animal that belongs.

• The white symbolizes his innocence, openness, and his weakness- how insignificant he is in the grand scheme of things.

The last lines of the two stanzas: "up through time" and "dives in the water" (excluding "Splash!" which is sort of on its own) I think refers to him --> all of the other verbs are from other objects (the "nuthatch call", for instance), but it is the narrator who "dives in the water", and he who is traveling "up through time". The "up through time" bit is almost as if he is going back to his roots- away from the city, from the technology, from the noise, and back to nature- he looses himself in the hemlock and the "ragged rocky skyline", and it is the call from the nuthatch that brings him back awake and up and moving again: "up through time" and back to his normal self. Thus, he moves on to not just relax but play, "scrambling on the peaks" and diving into the water.

• It's also a bit of up vs. down thing- the watching vs. action.

Then there is the last line, "Splash!". For some reason, it seems to conclude the whole poem. After a day of relaxing and climbing in nature, he ends with a splash in the water. This word accounts for all of that, and has the connotation of cool water and happiness all in one- it is excitement! The narrator sort of just ends his day with a splash. That's nice.

• A little joke, almost, the word, concludes it all, much like other arts as they push you into its depths of thought and ideas.

The title Old Pond: refers to multiple things, but I like the interpretation that it is a bottomless pond- the narrator dives into its depths, diving into it physically as well as into nature and himself: it does not matter when he comes up (if he comes up at all), but that he, perhaps, took that "leap of faith" and just accepted it. "Snyder honors freedom and energy"- I think this is what the whole poem is about: without those "constricting cultural assumptions and emotional baggage", but doing things by instinct and emotion and in nature. The beauty of it. There is no guilt, fear, worry- just quiet in the mind.