Natural Tendencies

James Nicola's eighth book of poetry first captured me by its title. “Tendency” is derived from the Latin to stretch, to extend, to aim, that is, both physically and mentally. It is usually employed to indicate a person's inclination toward something that one cannot avoid or cannot do without. In effect, all these poems show their author's inevitable and urgent leaning toward the wonders of nature (the substantive that indicates the landscape outside). Beginning with Emerson and Thoreau (even more appropriately, one could start with William Burford), nature in its terrifying and/or magnificent aspects, in its dangers and/or its beauties, be it wilderness or wood, has always been an essential source of inspiration for the American poet. In spite of urbanization, industrial development, and pollution, it continues to be so. Nicola is a New Yorker who looks and writes about nature as if he were living in Maine. He can stop and meditate over an ant or a dandelion, admiring their ability to survive and be a reason for delight because such an attitude is “natural” to him: it comes from within—both physically and mentally.Let us have a look at a little jewel: IvyIvy never boasts a flowerBut will cling as new shoots growSoar as high as any towerSoaking what the stones bestowScaling monuments of powerPast the students strewn below.When a steeple chimes an hourOld souls scattered long agoHaunt a place they used to knowWatching ivy speed and slow.The abundance of harsh “s” sounds gives an idea of this evergreen plant's struggle to persist in spite of dire outer conditions and dire inner limits. After addressing the plant's height, the poet singles out the lower and horizontal dimension of two sets of humans: living and dead, “students” and “souls.”Against the strength of this plant with its long and slender stems, the two sets of humans share a common trait: they are dispersed and either unprepared or disembodied, either inactive or obsessive. In the last line, meaningful are the two spaces before and after “and.” While they induce an unrushed reading (silently or aloud) of the poem, they underline nature's permanence when compared to the shortness of human life.If nature is and has always been central to the mind and consciousness of American poets, especially during the era of modernism, they have devised means to celebrate it in new ways: through the language, of course, but also by employing technical devices to make language speak, as if it were beyond itself. One has but to think of e. e. cummings's or of W. C. Williams's unorthodox use of punctuation, of enjambements, of typography, and of their conception of the page as a canvas on which to splatter their carefully chosen words (or of parts of them). Nicola knows them.For instance, in “In the Forest,” he chops his metrics: They sniffed the air and stared as if I werea prodigal of theirs, returned and wiser now, whom they had missed and were unsureof, but not scared of: Love was in their eyes.What a nice way to present, through the typographic break, the poetic voice's uncertainty, his doubts, about being really “wiser”!And in: Bright DaysBright days I see CLEARERbut clear nights, f a r t h e r.The reader understands, agrees, and enjoys—just as much

Archaeology · Geography · Natural (archaeology) · Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature · Poetry Analysis and Criticism · Thoreau and American Literature