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The poem Robin Redbreast by
Stanley Kunitz can be read for
dual themes namely art and mortality
(death). Every artist seeks
the subject matter for his creation
but the subject matter is never
an extra terrestrial. The creative
writer begins with what he has.
He looks at the common phenomena
like any other common man. But
he looks at the something in
a new way.
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The speaker in the poem
is sitting in his room
with an empty page which
suggests that he is
seeking to full that
empty page with the
creation. He wants subject
matter. He was alone
meditating. Fortunately,
he heard squawking of
the bird. He knows Robin
Redbreast had become
the victim, wounded
circling in pain making
its last efforts to
live. Perhaps, it was
begging the poet its
life and the replacement
of the lost organs.
The speaker, being helpless,
stands fearing, worried
and watching the terrible
sight of a life being
gripped by silent death. |
The head of the bird has been
tunneled by a hunter’s
bullet, speaker felt sorry for
that bird. The sympathy, pity
and sense of sorrow evoked him
to write. He wrote about that
bird which became the poem.
Then creation is the result
of mediation (quest) and sensibility.
Artist is the man with these
two creative tools.
The poem also carries the theme
of mortality (death), humanity,
suffering, desire to live and
cruelty of mankind. An irony
is evident when we see a contrast
between a cruel hunter and a
sympathetic speaker. In the
poem a bird is injured and the
speaker scoops him into his
hands. The bird appeals for
help which suggests that the
desire to live boils in every
living creature, whatever their
size, race, color and species
are. But the speaker is not
capable enough to save him.
If any creature is old or dead
the whole charm vanishes and
ugliness surrounds it. When
speaker looks through the whole
of birds head and sees the vast
unappeasable sky. It refers
to the vast cosmos, which suggests
life comes out of cosmos and
dissolves into the cosmos once
again.
Robin Redbreast - Poem by Stanley
Kunitz
It
was the dingiest bird
you ever saw, all the color
washed from him, as if
he had been standing in the
rain,
friendless and stiff and cold,
since Eden went wrong.
In the house marked For Sale,
where nobody made a sound,
in the room where I lived
with an empty page, I had heard
the squawking of the jays
under the wild persimmons
tormenting him.
So I scooped him up
after they knocked him down,
in league with that ounce of
heart
pounding in my palm,
that dumb beak gaping.
Poor thing! Poor foolish life!
without sense enough to stop
running in desperate circles
needing my lucky help
to toss him back into his element.
But when I held him high,
fear clutched my hand,
for through the hole in his
head,
cut whistle-clean …
through the old dried wound
between his eyes
where the hunter’s brand
had tunneled out his wits …
I caught the cold flash of the
blue
unappeasable sky.
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