Reaching Light by Robert Adamson
Identify or quote two images that you find vivid or impressive. How do these images contribute to your undertsanding of the poet's purpose?

I dont even know the purpose to the poem!!!! can someone please help me!!!!

thankyou
xx



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/2021 01:05AM by lg.

REACHING LIGHT
--© 2001, Robert Adamson

Where was it we left him?
We say the journey’s up, but maybe

memory sinks deeper.
Our journey so far

has been quiet, the only
incident being that rock dislodged

as he spun around on his heel.
What was that stuff – brimstone?

The first slice of sunlight glanced off
a slab of dark marble that turned to glow.

His back moved ahead of me –
his curls, shoulders,

that neck. What new bone was he inventing
in his shuffling head, what chance

that a doorway would appear and then a house?
The dark supported me, comfortably

behind me, a cradle woven from
demon hair. As I rose

and climbed toward day, his turning head,
those eyes – strips of memory,

silver tides, moons rising over the
rim of the world—

brought back the day we were married,
standing in fine rain, then escaping from family,

sex by a rolling surf in a high wind, velvet
heavens and the stars omens:

calendars, clocks, zodiacs –
straight, bent signs.



Les

do u know what the poets purpose was???

Hanna, it may be difficult to know what Adamson meant to accomplish here. In interviews at the following website he admits to using varying points of views and different personas to write his poetry. [www.robertadamson.com]

The poem to me seems to have biblical, or religious references, and at the same time a sort of "human condition" universality about it. Your guess is as good as mine about what the author is trying to communicate, though my guess is that the author of the following article has hit the nail on the head with his analysis. [www.arts.monash.edu.au]

He says that the poem is a retelling of the story of Eurydice and Orpheus, a Greek myth.

Here's a descrition of the myth: [en.wikipedia.org]

Good luck with this assignment, perhaps others here can help with their opinions.


Les



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/03/2022 11:59PM by lg.