REVIEW OF JOHN PEPPER CLARK’S SONG AS AN OUTLOOK OF SEPARATION

By Saheed Sunday 

I can look the sun in the face 

But the friends that I have lost

I dare not look at any. Yet, I have held

Them all in my arms, shared with them 

The same bath and bed, often

Devouring the same dish, drunk as soon 

On tea as on wine, at that time 

When but to think of an ill, made 

By God or man, was to find 

The cure prophet and physician

Did not have. Yet, to look 

At them now I dare not,

Though I can look the sun in the face.

One of the reasons poetry is probably a greater genre — different from the fact that it is the most ancient — is also the glaring factor of its ability to express so much in very few lines. This expression of thoughts, so to say, also comes with a high level of profundity which can be easily assessed depending on the simplicity or the vagueness of the diction of the poet. But, in JP Clark’s Song, everything in the poem strikes me as interesting. First, the relatability of the theme of the poem to the real world. The motif of separation that the poem hangs upon is that which humans should share a level of connection. Then comes the simplicity in the language of the poem. Then the music with which each word is written, which in the course of the poem contributes to the unity in what meaning the poem intends to pass.

To start with, when Clark says he “can look the sun in the face”, the first question that drums the readers’ inquisition is why exactly he would want to do that. However, poetry for Clark is in ascension; it is a medium of upward mobility. He begins his line with a cliffhanger and has us holding on to the peak. But then he quickly reverts with a clarification. That reversion brings us to a deep understanding of the reason behind his first line, being that he would rather look the sun in the face than have to suffer by looking at the faces of the friends he has lost. And, for people who share in this experience of separation, I think Clark is clear enough. There is a level of awkwardness that parades the spaces between a lost friendship. To the persona of the poem, staring directly at the sun is an easier and achievable feat, but making efforts to break this awkwardness is not. And why is that? Clark lures us into further ascension.

Clark, with vivid imagery, portrayed an image of a typical friendship in an average human society. So to say, the idea of friends holding one another, sharing the same baths and beds, devouring the same dish, and getting drunk on teas the same way they get drunk on wines is not far-fetched. Some friendships are so tight that the thought of a possible separation sounds so foreign to be pictured. This, exactly, is probably why Clark articulates it in words that “When but to think of an ill, made / By God or man, was to find / The cure prophet and physician / Did not have”. To Clark, it was a rather unimaginable situation. So, when the separation happens, the awkwardness that comes along with it also carries the memories of everything they once shared during the time of friendship. It is this awkward feeling that Clark finds so heavy that he would rather “look the sun in the face” than look at the faces of “the friends I have lost”.

To conclude, Clark’s expert use of words and his adeptness at their progression makes him an interesting poet. In this poem, the way he can say so much about the aftermath of a lost friendship makes the readers see how a short poem can say so much and still maintain its abruptness.