This past weekend, I finished up reading Lord of the Flies to my daughter for her school assignment. I’d forgotten just how rich with symbol it was, set on that island of mountain, fruit, shore, and eventually fire. (I’d remembered mostly the conch and Piggy’s glasses.)
But rich it was. The mountain became a seat for the terrible god, the jungle a place where boys melted back to savages and became one with the creepers, the sea a perennial washing away of the murderous (and eventually the source of rescue). And of course there were the boys themselves. Simon the prophet, Piggy the visionary, Ralph the force of Order, and Jack the fount of brute Chaos.
Poetry Prompt:
Write a poem that features a villainous or heroic symbol from nature. Or, if you recall Lord of the Flies (or wish to go back and research a little), write a poem about one of the heroic or villainous characters in the book, including a bit of the landscape as relates to him.
Thanks to everyone who participated in last week’s prompt. Here’s one we enjoyed from Monica Sharman:
Hers were scissor hands,
whet stone at the ready,
wicked blades razor sharp.
Slash, cut, slice
on the bias. Piece. Baste
batting to batik.
Quilted.
Photo by PS Lee, Creative Commons, via Flickr.
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Richard Maxson says
I have to say, I have not had the opportunity to read “Lord of the Flies” for over forty years. I’m sure I could not allude to it very successfully. Here in the Ozarks comes a drought banishing season of rain, but as the song goes, “every silver lining always seems to have a cloud” (Alison Krauss).
Rain Mixed With Hail
Across the lake, florets
of broccoli come to mind,
so lush are the swollen panniers
of leaves on the mountain,
a sanctuary for the deer
that eat the peonies as we sleep.
In the lowlands, quaint
with one-lane bridges
and narrow roads,
cars float away and dreams
are jarred awake in the rattling night.
Cracks in the pastoral, morning
windows, strawberries packed
and bleeding in the rows.
What to do with all these prayers
from the mountain tops
and the dale of shelters—
the grateful and the dire?
L. L. Barkat says
I especially like this: “a sanctuary for the deer
that eat the peonies as we sleep”
and how the images speak of the tension of beauty and destruction, the tension of what we know and what happens while we don’t know.
As for Lord of the Flies, it’s actually quite poetic in its own right. I wonder what it might look like for someone to find an excerpt on Amazon or elsewhere and create a found poem from some of its lines 🙂
Richard Maxson says
Thanks for the comment. We love the deer, we love the rain, but some things come wrapped in old newspaper without a bow.
L. L. Barkat says
Here’s a try, then. Just taking LOTF words and breaking them into lines (not even going so far as to rearrange separate lines into a found poem 🙂
Ralph climbed
on to the platform
carefully.
The coarse grass
was still
worn away where the assembly
used to sit; the fragile
white conch still gleamed
by the polished seat.
Richard Maxson says
Nice. This could be a fun exercise.
Richard Maxson says
Found poem from LOTF
The Arrow of the Sun
He went on among the creepers
until he reached the great mat
that was woven by the open space
and crawled inside.
Beyond the screen of leaves
the sunlight pelted down
and the butterflies
danced in the middle
their unending dance.
He knelt down
and the arrow of the sun
fell on him.
L. L. Barkat says
Love.
And somehow this reminds me of a kind of “Chosen One” scene, where the sun is almost like a god but the arrow is an image of both aim and kill (to sacrifice). The author seems to have quite an interest in the functioning of so-called “primitive cultures” and of course by sealing the images to these supposedly cultured British boys, he does away with that distinction.
Richard Maxson says
Yes. And we have this dichotomy present in the series on Loki. The problem has always been with us., the heroic vs. the sacrificial.
It is present in our modern extensions of archetypal myths (if sometimes oversimplified), The Batman, Superman, Captain America, The Hulk, Loki etc.
L. L. Barkat says
It’s interesting to me that Ralph is also pictured at the heart of darkness in some of the final scenes. I don’t recall the scene where the sun bathes him in that piercing light. So true that the dark-light is in all of those you mention. My girls would have much to say about those characters and their dichotomies, I’m sure 🙂
Richard Maxson says
It is sad now to think I was blind to this book’s poetry at whatever young age I was when I last read it. I am grateful to be reminded of it again.
More found poetry in LOTF:
The Ferny Coverts
If you could shut your ears
to the slow suck down
of the sea and boil
of the return, if you could
forget how dun and unvisited
were the ferny coverts
on either side,
then there was a chance
that you might
put the beast out of mind
and dream for a while.
L. L. Barkat says
Love this (and the two others).
I think if this was the way one studied Lord of the Flies in high school (by making little poems with the lines), it would be cool. It has a way of attuning you to the language and the situations.
Well, who says it can only be read as a teen? I’m glad you’re coming to it now—and with a whole lot of experience that probably makes certain things resonate far more.
So happy to have you doing these, Rick. I like to see your picks.
Richard Maxson says
Found poem LOTF:
This is foretelling of the book’s end, the fire and the dark smoke.
Dark Ships
Tall trunks bore
unexpected pale flowers
all the way up to the dark canopy
where life went on clamorously.
The air here was dark too,
and the creepers
dropped their ropes
like the rigging of foundered ships.
Richard Maxson says
Found Poem LOTF:
The Candlebuds
Now the sunlight had lifted
clear of the open space
and withdrawn from the sky.
Darkness poured out,
submerging the ways
between the trees
till they were dim and strange
as the bottom of the sea.
The candlebuds opened
their wide white flowers
glimmering under the light
that pricked down from the first stars.
Their scent spilled out into the air
and took possession of the island.
Richard Maxson says
Found poetry LOTF:
At Midday
Strange things happened
at midday. The glittering sea rose up,
moved apart in planes of blatant impossibility;
the coral reef
and the few stunted palms
that clung to the more elevated parts
would float up into the sky,
would quiver, be plucked apart,
run like raindrops on a wire
or be repeated
as in an odd succession of mirrors.
Sometimes land loomed
where there was no land
and flicked out
like a bubble as the children watched.
L. L. Barkat says
Oooo, love this:
“run like raindrops on a wire
or be repeated
as in an odd succession of mirrors”
Richard Maxson says
Found Poetry LOTF:
The Transparencies
The great Pacific tide was coming
in and every few seconds the relatively still water
of the lagoon heaved forwards an inch.
There were creatures that lived
in this last fling of the sea,
tiny transparencies that came questing in
with the water over the hot, dry sand.
With impalpable organs of sense
they examined this new field.
Perhaps food had appeared
where at the last incursion there had been none;
bird droppings, insects perhaps,
any of the strewn detritus of landward life.
Like a myriad of tiny teeth in a saw,
the transparencies came scavenging over the beach.
L. L. Barkat says
What a marvelous phrase:
“tiny transparencies that came questing in”
Richard Maxson says
Found poem LOTF.
Whereas many of the found poems have been beautiful or at worse ambiguous, this poem is so very beautiful in its description, but haunting and dreadful for what occurs. I found it one of the most powerful in the book conveying the hopelessness of the boys’ circumstance. It is longer than the others, but has to be.
From the World of Grown-ups
A sliver of moon rose over the horizon,
hardly large enough to make a path of light
even when it sat right down on the water;
but there were other lights in the sky,
that moved fast, winked, or went out…
A sign came down from the world of grown-ups,
though at the time there was no child
awake to read it. There was a sudden bright explosion
and corkscrew trail across the sky;
then darkness again and stars.
There was a speck above the island,
a figure dropping swiftly beneath a parachute,
a figure that hung with dangling limbs.
The changing winds of various altitudes
took the figure where they would.
Then, three miles up, the wind steadied
and bore it in a descending curve
round the sky and swept it in a great slant
across the reef and the lagoon toward the mountain.
The figure fell and crumpled
among the blue flowers of the mountain-side,
but now there was a gentle breeze
at this height too and the parachute flopped
and banged and pulled.
So the figure, with feet that dragged behind it,
slid up the mountain. Yard by yard, puff by puff,
the breeze hauled the figure through the blue flowers,
over the boulders and red stones,
till it lay huddled among the shattered rocks
of the mountain-top.
Here the breeze was fitful
and allowed the strings
of the parachute to tangle and festoon;
and the figure sat,
its helmeted head between its knees,
held by a complication of lines.
When the breeze blew, the lines
would strain taut and some accident
of this pull lifted the head and chest upright
so that the figure seemed to peer
across the brow of the mountain.
Then, each time the wind dropped,
the lines would slacken
and the figure bow forward again,
sinking its head between its knees.
So as the stars moved across the sky,
the figure sat on the mountain-top
and bowed and sank and bowed again.
Richard Maxson says
A better line break in this stanza :
The figure fell and crumpled
among the blue flowers of the mountain-side,
but now there was a gentle breeze at this height too
and the parachute flopped
and banged and pulled.