Entry 1454 — Thoughts about Saroyan’s Horses
I’ve been thinking about how to say why I very much like Aram Saroyan’s addition example, ocean plus forest equals horses. (1) It forces me to try to wonder some sense into it. (2) I see a fence between the never-motionless huge ocean to the left of a quiet forest and . . . horses. Visual equalities. (3) To put it most mechanistically, the poem is saying that if we take all the connotations of the word, “ocean,” and mix them with all the connotations of the word, “forest,” we’ll get all the connotations of the word, “horses.” That takes us back to (1): and I get flow of ocean continually going somewhere but never getting there, flow of horses (and living creature), forever also going nowhere . . . the forest much more slowly flowing there, too. The gallop of horses, the slower gallop of the ocean toward land, the climb and spread of a forest. This suggests (4) the haiku’s clash of two strong images to produce a third. There’s a poem somewhere in the depths of my messy mind that has the image of the ocean’s surf consisting of numberless horses galloping ashore. I find it intuitively easy to link ocean and horses, but the forest? Perhaps needed because the horses would otherwise be all flow?
the “orse” of “horses” and the “ores” of “forest” intrigue me, too, but I have found a way to make them a meaningful part of what the poem is doing–i.e., they are coincidental.
I don’t feel I’ve done more than have fun in the poem–i.e., no definitive interpretation here, for sure.
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For anyone interested in my Great Adventure, I have a sad announcement: after eighteen days of valiantly working on some project I consider important, I worked only a couple of minutes on one two days ago, then did not work at all on any of them yesterday. But it’s not over! I’m just toning down my vows. My latest is that I will do significant work on one or my of my Life’s Works daily for the next 21 days, or more!
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