Georgia Dusk

GEORGIA DUSK

It is not a mystery that poems elicit different feelings and images from people of all categories and walks of life. It is possible that one poem could evoke a feeling of antipathy from one reader who remembers times he, too, had something similar occur whereas another reader may have a feeling of hopelessness from the same poem. It is this credo that works are intrinsically subjective that can make understanding and critiquing poems the most enjoyable because it is incumbent upon him who reads them.

In "Georgia Dusk," by Jean Toomer, a person may picture himself walking through a woody dale in Georgia. For instance, when I read this poem, I feel as though I were just going for a walk across the Georgia countryside and all I can see is the beautiful summer scenery in front of me as daylight turns crepuscular.

This is especially elicited in the lines, "The sky, lazily disdaining to pursue/The setting sun, too indolent to hold/A lengthened tournament for flashing gold/Passively darkens for night's barbecue" (1-4). In line one, the reader notices how the author has portrayed the sky as "disdaining to pursue"—in essence, that the sky is rejecting to continue its course of existence and is allowing darkness to envelop its environment. In line two, the "setting sun" is being referred to as being "indolent" in its effort to hold itself afloat. "Indolent" is an adjectival synonym for "lazy"; therefore it is safe to assume that the author is describing to his reader that the sun could very well hold itself up, but as the day lengthens, it has become tired and so has its will to stay afloat.

In lines three and four, the reader begins to see just what happens when the sky and sun become "lazy" per se. The "flashing gold" is referring to the streaks of colors in the crepuscular sky caused by the sky and sun's indolence. The word "passively," in this context, helps further portray the indolence seen in the first stanza. The reader gets this feeling of finality from these last two lines as if this stanza were describing the end of an epoch.

In the second stanza, the reader appears to get the sense that dusk has ended and it is already night. This is mostly portrayed when the narrator says, "A feast of moon and men and barking hounds " (5). Here, the phrase "feast of moon" appears to be describing a "harvest moon"—a common occurrence in the late summer months when the crops have fully grown. The depiction of "men and barking hounds" seems to portray those people who are working on plowing the crop and the hounds are the animals that are possibly used to hunt down runaway slaves if some should decide to make a break instead of picking the crop.

The picture above becomes even more limpid when the narrator describes it as, "An orgy for some genius of the South" (6). Here, the word "orgy" may be being used to describe the roistering nature of this harvest moon feast wherein all of these people are picking the crop late at night. Furthermore, at the end of the line is the word, "South" in its capitalized form, which seems to be representational of the Confederate States. Georgia was a Confederate state during the American Civil War and this pride may still be extant in the mind of this narrator.

It has already been discussed that different readers infer different parts of a literary work differently. This is especially true when the narrator says, "With blood-hot eyes and cane-lipped scented mouth/Surprised in making folk-songs from soul sounds" (7-8). It is in these two lines that one might get the impression that they are describing the slaves while they are in the process of picking a cane crop. The description, "blood-hot eyes" may be referring to how tired these slaves are from working all day in the fields and now having to continue their work throughout the night.

In the third stanza, the reader gets what appears to be a surprise twist: "The sawmill blows its whistle, buzz-saws stop/And silence breaks the bud of knoll and hill/Soft settling pollen where plowed lands fulfill/Their early promise of a bumper crop" (9-12). The description in line nine of a sawmill's blowing its whistle may make the reader picture in his head that the work day is coming to an end. This is clarified even more so when it mentions that "buzz-saws stop" upon hearing the sound of that whistle. Furthermore, the word, "silence" in line ten buttresses this argument that the work day has ended because silence appears to break the bud of the knolls and hills around.

At this point in the poem, the reader might feel as though he were being taken back in time to the days of yore. He may also think that the depiction of dusk is an ending of something more significant than another day—but the ending of an era wherein the South was contemned for its abusive treatment of blacks.

In the fourth stanza, the reader further gets this feeling of rustic life when the narrator says, "Smoke from the pyramidal sawdust pile/Curls up, blue ghosts of trees, tarrying low/Where only chips and stumps are left to show/The solid proof of former domicile" (13-16). The depiction of "blue ghosts of trees" in line fourteen lets the reader picture that the landscape appears to be getting darker. As it gets darker, the trees become silhouetted thus forming a blue ghost depiction to the narrator. Furthermore, this stanza discusses how some of these trees are gone and only the stumps are left, signifying even more so the end of the day because the sawmill is no longer in use so these stumps are just resting there undisturbed.

As the poem continues, the reader starts to notice that it take on a force of its own, especially when the narrator exclaims, "Meanwhile, the men, with vestiges of pomp/Race memories of king and caravan/High priests, an ostrich, and a juju-man/Go singing through the footpaths of the swamp" (17-20). In this stanza, the author seems to be portraying something grandiloquent. The phrase, "vestiges of pomp" may be used to describe the termination of the dusk as it becomes night. The "men" could be the overseers of the slaves as they pick the cane crop.

Furthermore, the description of "high priests, an ostrich, and a juju-man" seems to be signifying something ominous. A high priest is known for being a middleman for God and a juju-man deals with magic charms and amulets so these are possibly limning to the reader preternatural concepts. The ostrich might signify someone who has his head in the ground—as if to say that Georgia is stubborn and conservative in its views on its pre-Civil War principles. These figures may also be signifying that the Georgia dusk is somehow magical and ethereal in nature.

The author continues to describe the beauty of the Georgia dusk when he says, "...the pine trees are guitars/Strumming, pine-needles fall like sheets of rain/Their voices rise...the chorus of the cane/Is caroling a vesper to the stars" (21-24). The word, "vesper" is used in line twenty-four to describe the caroling of what appears to be these high priests and juju-man. A vesper is the evening star or the old canonical hour evening call to prayer. In this sense, the evening star is the planet Venus—the brightest object in the sky next to the moon and probably was instrumental, at least in this time, in helping these people plow their harvest.

The final stanza seems to précis the entire literary work when the narrator exclaims emphatically, "O singers, resinous and soft your songs/Above the sacred whisper of the pines/Give virgin lips to cornfield concubines/Bring dreams of Christ to dusky cane-lipped throngs" (25-28). Here, the reader can imagine perhaps the horde of slaves are now chanting while they work. The "virgin lips" seem to be directly antonymous with the term, "concubine" being used in line twenty-seven. A concubine is a type of mistress or secondary wife, which elicits the notion of something soiled or adulterated. This is completely antipodal to what the word, "virgin" connotes. The concubines, though, appear to be the slaves as they work through the night indefatigably.

In the end, this poem can be interpreted in many different ways. There are many aphorisms that can be used to describe this piece of work. One popularly used hackneyed phrase, "to each his own" comes to mind because each person may glean from this poem whatever he may, and no interpretation is wrong. Whether a person be inclined to argue that a piece of work is austere in nature or sarcastic in nature is really up for him to decide because there is no true right or wrong answer when trying to understand the meaning of any author's works. It really all depends on the reader's own response.