TimeAllen Curnow

Allen Curnow

Allen Curnow, who died in 2001, is one of the most celebrated New Zealand poets. This poem was written while he was still resident in Christchurch. However, it is included in his collection Early Days Yet which was published in 1997. These poems, both old and recent, had a thematic connection. They appear in reverse chronological order and are introduced by a quotation from Samuel Butler’s Erewhon: ‘The Erewhonians say that we are drawn through life backwards; or again that we go onwards into the future as into a dark corridor.’ Allen Curnow once said that some of his poetry tried to explore ‘the private and the unanswerable’. This poem might answer this description.

Stanza One

I am the nor’ west air nosing among the pinesI am the water-race and the rust on railway linesI am the mileage recorded on the yellow signs.

Comment on the writer’s use of the first-person perspective in the poem. What effect is he creating

here?

First-Person Perspective:

• Personifies time• Adds an element of mystery – the reader is

initially unsure about who the ‘I’ in the poem refers to.

Stanza TwoI am dust, I am distance, I am *lupins back of the beachI am the sums the *sole-charge teachers teachI am cows called to milking and the magpies screech

*Lupins are a common sight on the South Island of New Zealand where they have become wild.

*Sole-charge teachers are found in about 8% of primary schools in New Zealand. These are usually rural schools in isolated villages which consist of only one class and one teacher.

Explain the purpose of the repeated “I”s in the first line of

Stanza 2. How does this differ from the rest of the poem?

Stanza Three

I am nine o’clock in the morning when the office is cleanI am the slap of the belting and the smell of the machineI am the place in the park where the lovers were seen.

What is significant about the first line of Stanza 3?

Stanza Four

I am recurrent music the children hearI am level noises in the remembering earI am the sawmill and the passionate second gear.

Why is the word “remembering” significant with relation to the idea

of ‘time’?

Stanza Five

I, Time, am all these, yet these existAmong my mountainous fabrics like a mist,So do they the measurable world resist.

A clue to some of the implications is in the last line of this stanza. Try to work out the meaning of this line.

Discuss the metaphor/simile of the mountains and the mist. Why does the poet compares the images of the first four stanzas to ‘mist’?There may be more than one reason.

Why do you think the speaker in the poem waits until Stanza 5 to

introduce himself?

Stanza Six

I, Time, call down, condense, conferOn the willing memory the shapes these were: I, more than your *conscious carrier.

What do you understand by the phrase ‘conscious carrier’?

Conscious Carrier

• Consciousness - an alert cognitive state in which you are aware of yourself and your situation / knowing and perceiving; having awareness of surroundings and sensations and thoughts

• Carrier - someone whose employment involves carrying something / a person or firm in the business of transporting people or goods or messages

Stanza Seven

Am island, am sea, am father, farm and friend,Though I am here all things my coming attend;I am, you have heard it, the *Beginning and the End.

The last line ‘I am … the Beginning and the End’ is derived from the Bible: Revelation 22, v.13. There are also echoes of ‘East Coker’ (Eliot’s Four Quartets) with its closing lines ‘In my end is my beginning’.

Rev 22 v. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omeg the first and the last, the beginning and the end."

Exercise

1. Now go back over the first four stanzas and look again at all those images. Choose one (image) you like and talk about what it represents to you and how it appeals to the senses.

1. This might be a good time to consider the tenses in the poem. It is set resolutely in the present with ‘I am’ – but are there anywhere references to the past and the future?

2. What are the implications of this exploration of Time?

3. How can we understand and discuss Curnow’s views on time?

Exercise

1. For this poem, it is not necessary or perhaps possible to understand the full meaning precisely.

2. Write a single statement entirely in their own words about what the poem has communicated to you about Time.

3. Share your sentence with those near you and compile a short paragraph of what the poem says together.

Exercise