'Sestets' Illuminate Space Between Physic and Aesthetic

Things rarely come in groups of six. Sextuplets (by birth or in a boy band) are uncommon and overwhelming, while musical arrangements are more likely to be written for a quartet or a quintet. Because of this, if the word sestet rings a bell, it is likely that the cognizance dates back to your high school unit on poetry. The sestet is commonly known as the last 6 lines of a sonnet, usually demarcating a turn in thought. And though a sestet can be any six-lined stanza or poem, with “Sestets,” the latest volume of poetry by Charles Wright, it is helpful to think of that one. As the 20th volume for the poet—a Pulitzer and Griffin Prize winner—“Sestets” marks a high point in the progress of a style of contemplation that Wright has made his own over the years.

Although Wright has always shown a skill for distilling an experience and recording its essence, his “Sestets” are, by the definition of their form, pithier than previous poems. In these nearly haiku-like meditations, Wright recursively combs over symbols he sees around him in the natural world as he circles around death and the meaning of life. The opening line of the collection reads, “The metaphysics of the quotidian was what he was after.” The “he” could easily stand in for the author.

Throughout these poems Wright is acutely aware of the passage of time, and this is what drives his repeated examination of the nature surrounding him. The cyclical nature of his writing reflects the changing seasons that form a backdrop spanning the collection. In 68 of these compact studies, one would think that the poet would find answers in the nature he returns to so frequently. But it becomes apparent after a time that he seems to find his answers, more than in these meditations, in the act of writing.

Over the course of the collection, Wright gradually introduces the metaphorical relationship between language and life. In “Tomorrow,” the first poem, Wright suggests that life has already been written “on the flyleaf of the Book of Snow.” Later he looks at language not as a tool of the “merciless” future but of his own understanding. In “Sundown Blues,” he realizes “There are some things that can’t be conveyed—/ description, for instance.” In the very next line he goes on to try: “The sundown light on that dog-hair lodgepole pine and the dead branches of spruce trees.”

In this volume, Wright draws on every source he can—religion, science, mythology, and even popular music—to try to pin down an image or emotion. “Sundown Blues” concludes with the “sundown light” he had just described “chameleoning” away and captures the feeling with the down-to-earth rhythms of a southern spiritual: “No one is able to describe this gold to bronze to charcoal, no one. / So move along, boy, just move along.” He confounds the problem of understanding life with the problem of writing about it—its subject matter is too complex and ever-shifting for the human abilities to capture.

Wright’s attempt to understand life through words draws him to songs from the folk tradition. His poems often go beyond imitating folk rhythms and diction to quoting directly from songs. Pieces of lyrics waft through his poems as they cross the narrator’s consciousness—for example “Rhinestone Cowboy,” the title of a song by Glen Campbell, and “Such a wonderful spot, there’s coffee and bananas and the temperature’s hot,” from a song by Freddy Martin. In a poem entitled “Tuttie Frutti,” Wright quotes Little Richard—“A-wop-bop-a-loo a-lop-bam-boo,” concluding, “What could be better than that?” Wright is fascinated by the sensations conveyed by words, and these mentions to outside works help anchor poems that may otherwise be too abstract to a world the reader knows.

One of the many references made throughout these poems is to Gerald Manley Hopkins, the 19th-century British poet and Jesuit Priest. Hopkins himself struggled to understand the world and did so by finding God behind the exquisite beauty he saw in nature. Wright’s poems find beauty as well, but his world view is much more nebulous than that of Hopkins. “Who was it who first said, ‘The kingfisher falls through fire’?” asks Wright, twisting around the opening line of Hopkins’ famous poem, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire.” Like Wright’s descriptions throughout the collection, his misquotation prioritizes his subjective impression of the poem over Hopkins’ own words. The objects in this world are escaping his grasp, and once more Wright shows how his struggle with “the metaphysical” can be transferred to his struggle with language.

The final poem in “Sestets” is entitled “Little Ending.” “Later,” he writes, “...Someone will take our hand, someone will give us refuge, / Circling left or circling right.” The answer as to what lies behind death has finally arrived, but it is incredibly—and intentionally—vague. However, after seeing Wright’s struggle to describe the present, his nondescript conclusion seems fitting. In his philosophy, capturing the essence of things is more important than the thing itself, and in these last two lines he manages to relate the sense of security.

The word “God,” which appears in previous poems, is noticeably absent from “Little Ending.” The who and what are left undefined, and that is the point—understanding is not so important as trying to understand.

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Schuetz can be reached at schuetz@fas.harvard.edu.