indian river, by wallace stevens

the trade-wind jingles the rings in the nets around the racks
     by the docks on Indian River.
it is the same jingle of the water among the roots under the
     banks of the palmettoes,
it is the same jingle of the red-bird breasting the orange-
     trees out of the cedars.
yet there is no spring in Florida, neither in boskage perdu,
     nor on the nunnery beaches.

(from Stevens, Collected Poetry & Prose, p. 93)

*     *     *     *     *

Another example of Stevens' 'Floridaphilia.'  How he loves it!  I can relate to his sense that there is some sort of subtle 'jingling' sound one can 'pick up' when one is in a very magical place in nature where there's a lot of life going on.  Even in the desert, where there isn't exactly a 'jingle,' there is some sort of ethereal sound you can detect when you tune in to all the life that is happening there.  But in a place like Florida, that is so wet, it must be very very musical.

Please read the comments associated with this post because they are very good. There is even a translation of the expression 'boskage perdu' which is quite interesting, and make this poem even more intriguing. I said above that Stevens 'loved' Florida - I may be wrong about this, but certainly he was fascinated by it, perhaps because it was so different from his beloved Berks County Pennsylvania. He titles another poem "O Florida, Venereal Soil,' (with venereal cognate for veneno, poison in Spanish) and describes its 'dark' pull for him. He makes various references also to the Spanish remnant culture of Florida (the guitar, the Cuban, tiestas [flowerpots], and calls Florida 'donna') which was so at odds with the puritan Anglo-German culture of parts of southeastern Pennsylvania, where he grew up. In my own family's history that tension still existed in my own mother's day, and in fact my maternal grandfather was born in the same year, and even month, as Stevens and only a matter of miles distant, in Weissport Pennsylvania. The fact that there is no 'Spring' in Florida must have seemed quite dire to Stevens, who seems to have valued Spring. On the other hand, perhaps the absence of winter might have attracted him. If there is no winter, there is no need for spring.

Comments

[Lori Witzel]

Am down in San Antonio for a long weekend, and it is interesting how the humid air carries sound better.

Snippets of conversations seem almost telepathically overheard, and the moisture in the air holds sound for a tiny echoing moment longer.

Lovely lovely poem bit, as ever -- thanks.

[Susan Sanford]

It could be that birds flutter as they rise up and shake the leaves of the trees.

[David LaDow]

What a wonderful poem. The first three lines capture sound and rhythm beautifully, but it is the last line that makes it more than a jingle. "There is no spring in Florida ..." No spring: no renewal, rebirth, renaissance? And you will not find spring, rebirth, in a "boskage perdue." A boskage is a dense thicket, and perdue means a close place of concealment, but its second meaning is one accustomed to, or employed in, desperate enterprises, therefore reckless or hopeless. Nor will you find it on "nunnery beaches." On a beach, you are in the open, the opposite of a boskage, but a nunnery is a place of cloister, of another kind of concealment, or shield perhaps against the world. So neither will avail - there is no spring in Florida.

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