Gubbinal
By Wallace Stevens (1879 - 1955)
Wallace Stevens was a very interesting man. He studied first at Harvard and then New York law school, but he made his living selling insurance. Despite all of these boring grown up details, his poetry consistently returned to theme of childlike imagination. For him, as this poem particularly demonstrates, imagination was the key to a happy life.
"Gubbinal" That strange flower, the sun, Is just what you say. Have it your way. The world is ugly, And the people are sad. That tuft of jungle feathers, That animal eye, Is just what you say. That savage of fire, That seed, Have it your way. The world is ugly, And the people are sad.
The first time I read this poem I thought, “Well that’s a depressing condemnation of the world,” and moved on. But I was forgetting one of the most important rules of poetry, of all literature really. Just because an author writes something, doesn’t mean they believe it is true. Imagine the speaker of the poem as a child, alive with imagination and wonder. To them, the sun is a strange flower, and those “animal eyes” belong to a jaguar, and that little clump of plant matter may explode at any moment.
Now do you see the adult coming behind them who tells them how silly they are being. They ‘educate’ the child by telling them that they are pointing at the sun, not a flower, and those eyes they see at night belong to a racoon, not a jaguar. So, spirit crushed and wonder killed, the child relents. “Have it your way,” he says. In that moment, the world is ugly, and people are sad.
But it doesn’t have to be. On closer reading, this poem feels less like a condemnation and more like a prescription.