Reading Week Day Five: Crow

In the past we’ve spoken about universality in literature: the themes and emotions that all humans have experienced, and how we, as writers, must turn them into something new. Everyone has loved, so love poems and songs resonate with all of us. Most of us have hated, so those poems resonate as well. When we write about experiences that are unique to us (parenthood, rejection, loneliness, illness) we find universal ways to help our readers understand them. Imagery, symbolism, and other literary devices are really just ways to find common ground that readers have visited before.

Some writers—the very greatest of writers—are more ambitious. They write about the inexplicable and indefinable. They write about things that nobody has ever written about before.

Ted Hughes was one of those writers, and his book, Crow, is one of those books. In it, Hughes writes about the creation of the world, but he inserts a character you won’t find in Genesis: Crow.

Crow Blacker than ever

When God, disgusted with man,
Turned towards heaven.
And man, disgusted with God,
Turned towards Eve,
Things looked like falling apart.

But Crow . . Crow
Crow nailed them together,
Nailing Heaven and earth together -

So man cried, but with God's voice.
And God bled, but with man's blood.

Then heaven and earth creaked at the joint
Which became gangrenous and stank -
A horror beyond redemption.

The agony did not diminish.

Man could not be man nor God God.

The agony

Grew.

Crow

Grinned

Crying: 'This is my Creation,'

Flying the black flag of himself.

___

Something has gone terribly wrong during the creation of man. God has made a grave error, and the Crow has intercepted everything. Who is Crow? He’s the inexplicable. That’s all.

Crow's Theology

Crow realized God loved him-
Otherwise, he would have dropped dead.
So that was proved.
Crow reclined, marvelling, on his heart-beat.

And he realized that God spoke Crow-
Just existing was His revelation.

But what Loved the stones and spoke stone?
They seemed to exist too.
And what spoke that strange silence
After his clamour of caws faded?

And what loved the shot-pellets
That dribbled from those strung-up mummifying crows?
What spoke the silence of lead?

Crow realized there were two Gods-

One of them much bigger than the other
Loving his enemies
And having all the weapons.

Yesterday we spoke about how hard writers should work to reach their readers. Here is the power of poetry: it can make a reader feel and see before it makes them understand. You might not know what Crow is, but damned if you’re not going to feel him. And this is why poetry is magic. If it makes you feel, you’re more likely to wrestle with what it wants you to understand.