Stray Paragraphs in February, Year of the Rat by Charles Wright
"Stray Paragraphs in February, Year of the Rat" by Charles Wright explores complex themes surrounding landscape, spirituality, and the human experience. In this poem, Wright reflects on the dual nature of landscape as both a source of beauty and a reminder of regret, encapsulating his perspective that the external world is intertwined with our internal emotions. He delves into feelings of uncertainty and yearning, suggesting that the act of renunciation can lead to a form of ecstasy, even amidst doubt. The poem presents a melancholic view of existence, where the presence of a deity is questioned, leading to an existential contemplation of life's struggles and the void of divine intervention. Wright personifies February, pleading for relief from its burdens, highlighting the influence of seasonal change on human emotions. Ultimately, he expresses a desire for hope and renewal as spring approaches, suggesting that the landscape can offer glimpses of resurrection and vitality. This blend of introspection and connection to the natural world creates a rich tapestry of meaning that invites reflection on the interplay between environment and inner life.
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Stray Paragraphs in February, Year of the Rat by Charles Wright
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1998 (collected in Appalachia, 1998)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
In “Stray Paragraphs in February, Year of the Rat,” the third line, “A love of landscape’s a true affection for regret, I’ve found,” conveys Wright’s characteristic contradictory vision of landscape as a tableau of endless fascination as well as a source of discontent—“outside us, yet ourselves” as Wright sees it. The pattern of counterstatements continues: “Renunciation, it’s hard to learn, is now our ecstasy,” with Wright’s doubt-driven faith operating as a foundation for some deep-winter expressions of yearning and uncertainty. As in many later poems, Wright’s sense of a deity is darkened by an almost existential mood of resignation. “[I]f God were still around,” Wright poses, “he’d swallow our sighs in his nothingness.”
Following four stanzas in this fashion, Wright directly addresses the season as if it were a manifestation of divine power: “February, old head turner,” he implores, “cut us some slack,” his use of a vernacular making the plea personal. The “melancholy music” of the season (and the era, significantly the “Year of the Rat”) is pervasive, but Wright hopes that some force, internal and/or external, will “Lift up that far corner of the landscape,” which he now designates as “toward the west” where the “deep light” of day’s end might provide some reason for hope and the revival of life—“the arterial kind”—that the advent of spring promises.
The following poem, “Stray Paragraphs in April, Year of the Rat,” augments this expectation with its conclusion that “The soul is air, and it maintains us.”
Bibliography
Andrews, Tom, ed. The Point Where All Things Meet: Essays on Charles Wright. Oberlin, Ohio: Oberlin College Press, 1995.
Bourgeois, Louis. “An Interview with Charles Wright.” The Carolina Quarterly 56 (Spring/Summer, 2004): 30-37.
Wright, Charles. Halflife: Improvisations and Interviews, 1977-1987. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988.
Wright, Charles. Quarter Notes: Improvisations and Interviews. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995.