“Words” by Dana Gioia
The world does not need words. It articulates itself
in sunlight, leaves, and shadows. The stones on the path
are no less real for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.
The fluent leaves speak only the dialect of pure being.
The kiss is still fully itself though no words were spoken.
And one word transforms it into something less or other—
illicit, chaste, perfunctory, conjugal, covert.
Even calling it a kiss betrays the fluster of hands
glancing the skin or gripping a shoulder, the slow
arching of neck or knee, the silent touching of tongues.
Yet the stones remain less real to those who cannot
name them, or read the mute syllables graven in silica.
To see a red stone is less than seeing it as jasper—
metamorphic quartz, cousin to the flint the Kiowa
carved as arrowheads. To name is to know and remember.
The sunlight needs no praise piercing the rainclouds,
painting the rocks and leaves with light, then dissolving
each lucent droplet back into the clouds that engendered it.
The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it always—
greater than ourselves and all the airy words we summon.
Gioia uses a single word to describe her feelings towards language in and of itself. By using the word “word”, she is able to emphasize her feelings by not only by giving the word, but also the definition or description of an image or object the world views as greater than what the word alone encompasses. From the beginning, it is stated that “The world does not need words. It articulates itself/ in sunlight, leaves, and shadows”. Gioia's view of the world is that language is not necessary because meanings can be explained though action and observation. A kiss can be “illicit”, yet the single word as a description does not fully explain the action or the feelings. A single word as a description causes the action to become categorized by the definition of the one word description. A kiss would then be seen as only illicit rather than all that a kiss is. Likewise, the author uses an object as proof that words are not the only way to view the world. A “red stone” is given much more meaning when it is described in terms of its relationship to the world. The author, however, seems to contradict herself as the poem progresses. The opening line is “The world does not need words”, but Gioia later states that “To name is to know and remember”. “To name” would simply be to give the “word” that relates to the object rather than remembering an observation or a history of the “word”. By using a single word, in both the title and throughout the poem, Gioia creates a question about language and observations. Her question throughout the poem of if words are necessary or not creates an uncertainty about the word “word” itself and what exactly “word” means.
LINK
15 years ago
7 comments:
I really liked this poem.
It is commenting on how as human beings, we feel the need to categorize everything, even though it is not necessary. Everything exists in a perfect state of "pure being" on its own, without an explicit word assigned to it. A single word does not begin to encompass every minute detail of a kiss, of the sun shining. However, we feel the need to name everything, and that is when one stone becomes better and more memorable than another and the other becomes "less real."
I agree with the poem in that we humans don't grasp the real meaning of a single word. We just see it as something one dimensional. This poem's use of language helps to see a word in three dimensions. We mistake a word as merely a "word" and nothing else. Gioia, I believe is using the language of her poem to create this picture from a word. She is demonstrating how a word can be something completely different than what the "cover" says. I agree with you though, that she does create a question about observations and language.
I think that Gioia is not necessarily trying to say that words are unneeded, but instead that they are utterly incomplete. This is to say that words cannot fully encompass the vast meaning they intend to convey. To declare some feeling or thing in a word is to limit its meaning, like trying to fit all the water in a bottle into a mere thimble. However, by using what Lisa dubbed as contradiction, the poet is saying that as humans there is no way to convey any meaning to anything without labels. Gioia is proving her point by in fact contradicting it!
First, good choice picking a poem called "words" for the language week, I thought that was funny. As for the poem, I love the emphasis on the word "words". The depiction that the reader gets is that words are very limiting and don't do the world justice. Essentially, words are for people who don't actually know what they are talking about. Gioia ties "words" in with other aspects of language to show the difference between knowing the name of something and actually know that thing.
The limitation of langauge and verbal expression is a very powerful and common motif in literature. Can you think of other works of literature that relate to the poem?
Well, in response to Ms. Giggie's question, the limitation of words reminds me of my favorite novel, The Metamorphosis. While Kafka isn't exactly presenting the same idea in the sense of words, he is playing with verbal language and the limitations it presents. Gregor limits himself in not speaking out against his family and as a result, turns into an insect. His physical being is significant of the metamorphosis that he experienced within. Kafka and Gioia are both playing with the limitations of language but in different manners and contexts.
This poem shows how words can sometimes limit the mysteriousness or the beauty of natural things. The author believes that words are insignificant because the occurrences of natural things can not be named, and speak for themselves. (Reading this poem reminded me of a quote “Labels are devices used for saving a talkative person the trouble of thinking” yea..it may not relate at all but it just popped into my head..”)..Moving onward, Categorizing things can give it an earthly limit, leaving no room for imagination, “Yet the stone remain less real to those who cannot name them”, this excerpt shows how an object can have a deeper meaning when it is not categorized.
Post a Comment