Jan Lowman Apr.

27, 2011 BrainstormN04, A1HL Howard Nemerovs Brainstorm is an odd poem in which, as so often happens in poetry, the literal and figurative elements engage in a weird dance of meaning. The title itself suggests the figurative levelthat the storm described in the lines of poem is actually occurring in the solitary characters mind. Apart from the poems he, but omnisciently aware of his experience, thoughts, and feelings, the speaker captures the momentous effects of first the literal and then the metaphorical storm. The vivid and detailed descriptions of the tumultuous weathers effect on an old house make the plot of the poem particularly clear. In fact, it is the thinkers observations of the storms impact that allow for the poems final philosophical twista revelatory insight into the creative power of Natures destructiveness. Nemerovs subtle prosody, vibrant house symbolism and the heartfelt analogy of brain to attic (bats in the belfry?) provide a rich description of the destructive/creative process of the human mind. Brainstorms prosody links the literal and figurative levels of the poem and orchestrates a profound concluding insight. At first reading, one may not notice that this free-flowing poem actually has a strict and regular rhyme schemea/b/a/b; c/d/c/d and so on, until the final solitary, unrhymed lineinside his head he heard the stormy crows. The regular rhyme lulls the reader into a soporific sense that perhaps this is merely observation and description. The solitary crows have been described as flying overhead and then walking on the rooftop; the lack of rhyme in the final line emphasizes the subtle blending of the physical and mental worlds of the ponderer. Although most of the rhymes are simple and clear (alone/groan; snow/show; veins/mains), Nemerov also makes use of slant rhyme, which has a disturbing and open-ended effect. Wind and blind are sight rhymeswords which may have rhymed at one point in the language, adding to the archaic tone created with the description of the crows. Additionally, the slant rhyming of feet and underneath creates auditory uneasiness and a yearning for a comfortable return to regular rhyme and a cessation to the storm. Along with the rhyme, the poems rhythm seems regular (iambic pentameter), but the poet jostles the rhythm with added syllables, as in Scratched, through his hair, his scalp. He might be dead (29). The awkward sound of extra syllables in the line reflects the characters discomfort at the crows crawling through his brain. Certainly, the poems prosody reinforces the insights into the creative process provided by its figurative language. Although the poem is entitled Brainstorm, the literal description is of an old house in a night rainstorm. Distinct parts of the housewindow and door, upstairs room, a blind, some hidden joist, a leaky tapcreate a visual picture of the scene. These more modern words, however, give way to a more archaic word choicerooftreewhich is a medieval word for a roof that has a more organic and natural connotation. Window pane, nail, wall and shingle yield to natural forces, as if the house were being attacked by nature. First, the crows came down from their loud flight; although not ravens, these large, black, croaking birds exude a sense of threat. The house itself was talking, not to him, he thought/But to the crows. The connection between the house and nature makes itself felt. Timber and sap/Revolt, ponders the solitary thinker, from washer, baulk and spike. Although the poems focus shifts in its second half from the house itself to the thinkers brain, there is the suggestion that the house is damaged, perhaps even destroyed by the storm: if the green uprising and mob rule. . ./Split him like a seed, chances are this is happening to the house as well. Its quite a tempest. Sitting in the storm-besieged house, the he of the poem (described as bent to his book on this windy night) comes to identify organically with his abode. At first he sat alone. Then he thought; he heard; he came to feel the crows walk on his head/As if he were the house. The simile establishes the poems ruling analogy. The mans mind is like the houseswayed by the winds, scratched by the horny feet of the crows. Since he is like the house, he too must, at some deep, organic level, revolt against unnatural control. Washer, baulk and spike are all technological or mechanical parts of a house, but truly Houses are

only trees stretched on the rack. In the same way, a human beingcivilized and formulated and disciplinedis an animal, perhaps tortured by social expectations and conformity. In the last ten lines of the poem, nature triumphs: He might be dead. This line from the omniscient speaker conveys the despair of the thinker at the sudden realization of what the act of building has done to him. But the triumphal gush of natural words in lines 31-37 (. . .sinews, veins, juices, and sodden sacks suddenly let go;. . . the rainy wind had been set free to blow/Until the green uprising and mob rule/That ran the world had taken over him. This revolution is greeted with joyous positivity. It might not be comfortable to be split. . . like seed, but at least it is profoundly natural. A house or a civilized human is like a crutch (negative, artificial word), but in the school of nature, any crutch can learn to be a limb. This epiphany is the result of the brainstorm, which is the result of the actual storm raging outside the house. As the thinker hear[s] the stormy crows. . . inside his head, the power and majesty of Nature are revealed, and a human beings part in the dark and potentially destructive symphony is made clear. Nemerovs poem, with its unexpected sound devices, its vivid literal descriptions, and its intrinsic coupling of house and human, celebrates the power of unexpected insighta gift of Nature if there ever was one.