Sheer Blue Milken Dreaminess:Galway Kinnell’s Answer to Logopoeia in “The Fly,” “Saint Francis and the Sow,” and “Blackberry Eating”

Abstract

Sheer Blue Milken Dreaminess:

Galway Kinnell's Answer to Logopoeia in

"The Fly," "Saint Francis and the Sow," and "Blackberry Eating"

by

Tanya Long Bennett

Abstract

An analysis of Galway Kinnell's poems "The Fly, "Saint Francis and the Sow," and "Blackberry Eating," reveals Kinnell's treatment of the concept of logopoeia, a term coined by Ezra Pound to describe a particular use of language in poetry.  Pound defined the term through illustration in the poems of Mina Loy and Jules Laforgue; it refers to the use of abstract, ironic vocabulary, which generates an objective, anti-sentimental, and satirical poetic stance.  Kinnell, who adopts a distinctly Romantic role as a poet, nonetheless employs key aspects of logopoeia in order to adapt the Romantic ideology to the contemporary reader.  Through a unique integration of Romantic sentiment with the intellectually playful, logopoeic use of diction, Kinnell produces poetry that both exploits and celebrates language and its multiple levels of meaning as well as addressing the painful wounds of the contemporary psych.