Hayden Carruth is a poet that doesn't pull any punches. His political views have been called "radical" and often inform his poetry. Carruth lived for many years in Vermont and the images of poverty and hardship in rural Vermont pack his poetry. About Carruth poet Galway Kinnell said, "This is not a man who sits down to 'write a poem'; rather, some burden of understanding and feeling, some need to
, forces his poems into being." But Carruth's poems are also some of the most accessible poems that are also critically acclaimed.
Carruth's poem Emergency Haying takes a direct shot at forced labor (although it is not explicit in this poem, I would be willing to guess that Carruth doesn't only mean physically forced labor but manual labor that is forced upon those because of economic reasons (i.e. sweatshops in Asia, most of the labor done by illegal immigrants, etc.)). While that seems to be the most obvious subject Carruth is dealing with in this poem there are other important ideas hanging in the wings of this poem: with the illusions to Christ Carruth seems to be alluding to Jesus' intense interest in social justice; a scathing indictment of the Moral Majority lack of focus on social justice issues. But what amazes me about this poem is that while Carruth is speaking out for those who are oppressed he is willing to humbly admit that he is not one of them, calling himself a "desk-servant, work-worker."
Emergency Haying
Coming home with the last load I ride standing
on the wagon tongue, behind the tractor
in hot exhaust, lank with sweat,
my arms strung
awkwardly along the hayrack, cruciform.
Almost 500 bales we've put up
this afternoon, Marshall and I.
And of course I think of another who hung
like this on another cross. My hands are torn
by baling twine, not nails, and my side is pierced
by my ulcer, not a lance. The acid in my throat
is only hayseed. Yet exhaustion and the way
my body hangs from twisted shoulders, suspended
on two points of pain in the rising
monoxide, recall that greater suffering.
Well, I change grip and the image
fades. It's been an unlucky summer. Heavy rains
brought on the grass tremendously, a monster crop,
but wet, always wet. Haying was long delayed.
Now is our last chance to bring in
the winter's feed, and Marshall needs help.
We mow, rake, bale, and draw the bales
to the barn, these late, half-green,
improperly cured bales; some weigh 150 pounds
or more, yet must be lugged by the twine
across the field, tossed on the load, and then
at the barn unloaded on the conveyor
and distributed in the loft. I help -
I, the desk-servant, word-worker -
and hold up my end pretty well too; but God,
the close of day, how I fall down then. My hands
are sore, they flinch when I light my pipe.
I think of those who have done slave labor,
less able and less well prepared than I.
Rose Marie in the rye fields of Saxony,
her father in the camps of Moldavia
and the Crimea, all clerks and housekeepers
herded to the gaunt fields of torture. Hands
too bloodied cannot bear
even the touch of air, even
the touch of love. I have a friend
whose grandmother cut cane with a machete
and cut and cut, until one day
she snicked her hand off and took it
and threw it grandly at the sky. Now
in September our New England mountains
under a clear sky for which we're thankful at last
begin to glow, maples, beeches, birches
in their first color. I look
beyond our famous hayfields to our famous hills,
to the notch where the sunset is beginning,
then in the other direction, eastward,
where a full new-risen moon like a pale
medallion hangs in a lavender cloud
beyond the barn. My eyes
sting with sweat and loveliness. And who
is the Christ now, who
if not I? It must be so. My strength
is legion. And I stand up high
on the wagon tongue in my whole bones to say
woe to you, watch out
you sons of bitches who would drive men and women
to the fields where they can only die.
from Toward the Distant Islands: New & Selected Poems (2006) © Hayden Carruth
While it might seem easy and romantic to dub Carruth a radical political poet, Carruth himself has his reservations about the difference poetry can make in the world. Ideas are powerful things, the fact that you are reading poetry and logging on to rednoW attest to that, but at some point ideas are just ideas. And this understanding is not lost on Carruth, a man who makes his living by putting together words. Call it cynicism or realism, you have to hand it to Carruth for writing a poem that seems to negate his own profession like the poem "On Being Asked To Write A Poem Against The War In Vietnam" does.
On Being Asked To Write A Poem Against The War In Vietnam
Well I have and in fact
more than one and I'll
tell you this too
I wrote one against
Algeria that nightmare
and another against
Korea and another
against the one
I was in
and I don't remember
how many against
the three
when I was a boy
Abyssinia Spain and
Harlan County
and not one
breath was restored
to one
shattered throat
mans womans or childs
not one not
one
but death went on and on
never looking aside
except now and then
with a furtive half-smile
to make sure I was noticing.
from Collected Shorter Poems, 1946-1991 (1995) © Hayden Carruth
For more on Hayden Carruth check out his bio and some other poems of his on poets.org.
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