Summer Farm Summary

Summer Farm - Norman MacCaig

Summary: The poet lies within the depths of his mind, probably in his happy place as his mother’s family lived in the rural area, which is reflected in this story. Everything described in the story is part of his mind, with perhaps every animal representing a different aspect of his mind. This poet always discusses the concept of having layers and layers of dreams, like how the mind is made up of layers and layers.

Structural analysis

1.       AABB rhyme scheme per stanza. These are thus couplets. They are used to make the poem have an upbeat and overall happy rhythm throughout the poem, as one would have when you are in your happy place.

2.       Four lines per stanza throughout. Implies a sense of organization in the thoughts of the poet before the reader, giving the impression that the poet is very calm and clear as one would have these organized thoughts when there is nothing to worry about.

3.       A lot of vowels are used with the sole purpose of slowing down the pace at which the reader reads. This is used to portray slow, relaxed thinking that the poet possess. It also implies a lack of stress as stress usually is correlated with fast and muddled thinking.

4.       Note the omniscient narration in the beginning of the poem as all details are made aware, even when the poet himself is not looking. Because this is the recesses of his head, we can safely say that he is both the character and the ‘God’ of his own world that he has created on his own. Similarly, we often give God a physical form, when in fact it is not needed as he is already omniscient and knows all. The poet also gives himself an omniscient self as well as a physical self to allow us to be able to empathise better with the poet, who is living in the world of his own.

Word-based analysis

1.       First line, first literary device, a simile, the simile is followed by an oxymoron “Straws like tame lightnings”.

a.      the use of the strange description can be used in correlation with the strange world he is depicting in the depths of his mind, as one often has strange thoughts and weird interpretations of the world that are often unexpressed in society. The strange description also foreshadows the fact that the world that he is about to describe for us is surreal.

2.      “Green as glass”. Yet another surreal simile, yet we find this to be amazingly true.

a.       Glass is actually a little green, which we can usually see when we take a big slab of glass. It is therefore the impurities of the glass that make it green. Therefore it sounds surreal at first, but is actually not on further inspection.

b.      This demonstrates the wonderfully intelligent mind of the poet in the sense that he not only sees, but observes the things that are in his view, something that many people cannot do.

3.       “The water in the horse-trough shines” 

a.       It is here that the poet tries to make himself look omniscient as he notes all the small details, including the ones that we often do not think about.

b.      The fact that it also shines implies that the water is uncontaminated and that the water is, at the moment, pure.

a.       Note that we also often do not find the horse-trough pure out in the open, as it has usually been drunk by the horse, once again giving the impression that the poem is probably one surreal and thus not real.

Take note that all animals described in the poem all represent a part of human thought that the poet has the capability of displaying. Therefore all interpretations of the animals relating to thought will be in grey. 

4.       “Nine ducks go wobbling by in two straight lines”

a.       This displays conformity and strict behaviour that the poet may often possess in times of stress or when the poet is preparing to do something drastic. The poet has the capability of expressing these in his head, but does not and therefore the form of thought takes the form of ducks, which are considered cute and not a threat to us at all to change our mental stability quickly, just the way the poet wants these to be. The fact that it is a duck makes it hard for it to be able to change the mental state of the poet as well due to the fact that it is so cute.

b.      The fact that they are walking in two separate lines and is wobbling shows the indecision found in the poet, that often he has two different ideas and has no idea which idea to go with, and often “wobbles” between the two.

c.       The fact that it wobbles evokes a positive attitude in the reader as wobbling usually is cute and creates an image of the ducks being adorable, when they are happy.              

5.       “A hen stares at nothing with one eye, then picks it up. Out of an empty sky”

        The portrayal of the hen can be used to convey the insane part of the poet or the undesirable thoughts that the poet has in the back of his head, the opposite of his conscience in a sense. The fact that it only has one eye gives the chicken a look of it being sinister. The fact that it stares at nothing gives an even more frightening picture, as it makes us wonder what we may find in the recesses of its mind. Note the caesura at the end of the verb “then picks it up.” The pause is used as a dramatic pause to allow what the chicken has done to sink in for the reader. Once again the fact that there is a dramatic pause indicates how insane the chicken might be that we take note of every action that we do.
“Out of an empty sky” this can indicate a sense of surrealism as it is impossible to take things out of something that is already empty, let alone something that is so far away already like the sky.

  i.      On the other hand the chicken, being the insane being that it was, saw something out of the nothingness and picked up something that it thought was there in the empty sky. It was having hallucinations.  The fact that the chicken was there in the first place shows acknowledgement.

6.       “A swallow falls and, flickering through the barn, dives up again into the dizzy blue”

The swallow is used to exemplify the beauty of nature itself and the beauty of the well-structured swallow that it has the ability to do such beautiful things in flight such as “flickering through the barn”. The swallow is a figment of the poet’s imagination, demonstrating how observant the poet is that it was able to replay the bird’s movements in his head.

The fact that the swallow dives up into a blue sky represents calmness, something that the poet is experiencing at the current moment. The fact that it is so vast that it makes one dizzy indicates the open mind of the poet, as one usually has deep down inside you.

7.       Finally the author is mentioned. “I lie, not thinking, in the cool, soft grass, afraid of where a thought might take me – as”. It is here that we see how calm he is in his posture (lying down). He is also pointing out detail again, indicating how relaxed he is that once again he can afford to focus on the details. Note how scared he is that this world of his might break and he would have to once again go back into reality. He perhaps is afraid of remembering his problems in reality, or the things that are causing him stress. “afraid of where a thought might take me” he is trying to forget sth.

8.       The grasshopper is mentioned. “This grasshopper with the plated face unfolds his legs and finds himself in space” Note once again the detail in the plated face.

 The grasshopper can represent him or his peace of mind as the grasshopper “unfolds his legs”, indicating that he was meditating beforehand. Then jumps, and finds himself in space. The poet is sleeping in the depths of his mind and the grasshopper is also in meditation. Upon awakening the grasshopper jumped into space, perhaps in fear of the poet. Similarly the poet’s mind jumps into the second layer of his dream and the poet is afraid that by doing so he has caused a domino effect. Similarly, the grasshopper jumps into the air suddenly and is suspended in air when the author mentions him, not knowing where he would land as he jumped on impulse.

9.       We see a repetition in the word “self” here. “Self under self, a pile of selves I stand”. The poet here expresses the fact that we are all made here from different identities. We have the identity that we put on at home, with our friends and with our extended family members. We also have the ones that we had in our past, before we changed into something better. All in all, when we combine them together, we get the final identity that you have, the one that you put on when you are alone. That is the “piles of selves I stand” the final identity that he has is put together from all the identities that he has in the past. This not only relates the poet, but to the people of humanity as well, we all have these identities, and we stand on top of the piles of selves that we once had before putting the real one on.

10.   “Threaded on time, and with a metaphysic hand” This line makes the poem reach the height of its surrealism as we start to see time blend in as well.

        Alternatively he could be implying that he is the descendent of a line of farm-owners, and that he is part of a chain of being and tightly connected but also separated from past and future as he lives in the present. Think about the Russian-doll structure, and how he is trapped between layers, the past and the future.

“metaphysic hand” accentuating the poet’s dominance over the dream world, perhaps besides the feeling of entrapment that he can’t help but feel and express in the dream as the definition of “metaphysic” is the study of being and knowing (omniscient presence)

11.   “Lift the farm like a lid and see farm within farm and in the centre, me” he is talking about how he is stuck between layers of the past and present. Although this time he isn’t talking about the people, this time he is talking about the farm that he grew up in. We will find him at the centre because It has improved over the ages and the one he lives in now will be sandwiched by the ones in the past and the ones that are yet to come

Once again he is at the centre as if he is at ‘the centre of the universe’ once again, after doing it time and time again, that he is the omniscient one in this world that is his mind.

Speaker of the poem: the poet himelf, both physical and the omniscient part of him.

Speaker’s attitude toward the subject of the poem:  philosophical, uncertain, nostalgic, contemplating

Paired poems (Identify poems in the anthology and why they are appropriate to be paired)

1.       A Birthday in the sense that the author was in a land of her own and that she created it to be surreal so that everything in it made her happy and full of love, similar to how the world that MacCaig created to make him feel relaxed.

2.       Continuum in terms of the surrealism involved and the level of detachment is similar to that in the beginning of Summer Farm as we get an omniscient narrator.

3.       The Cockroach in the sense that we see a reflection of the cockroach on the human, similar to how we see the dream world as a reflection of MacCaig.

4.       Pied Beauty by Gerard Manly Hopkins would pair well with Summer Farm because like Summer Farmas the poem describes the various aspects of nature such as the sky, the cow, the trout, the chestnut and the landscape.

5.       Hunting Snake by Judith Wright would pair well with Summer Farm because this poem describes a snake and its beauty just like Summer Farmdescribes the form and its beauty. Both poems focus on the natural aspects of the world.

6.       Where I Come From by Elizabeth Brewster would pair well with Summer Farm because just likeSummer Farm, this poem also describes various natural aspects such as the mountains, the tulips, the pine woods, the blueberry patches, the yards… etc

Memorable Lines

1.       “Straws like tame lightnings lie about the grass”

2.       “A hen stares at nothing with one eye, then picks it up. Out of an empty sky”

3.       “The grasshopper with the plated face unfolds his legs and finds himself in space.

4.       “Self under self, a pile of selves I stand”

Summer Farm by Norman MacCaig

1) The poet uses a simile to compare the dried grass lying around the farm to lightning that has been tamed.

2) He uses vivid visual imagery to give the reader a picture of how the straw lay around the farm and on the hedges. In the second line itself using enjambment the poet uses simile to compare the water in the horse trough to glass.

3) The poet describes the shinnying green water in the horses’ trough. The word shines also indicates a bright and sunny day.

4) To add to the visual imagery the poet uses kinaesthetic imagery y describing ducks wobbling by in front of him. He adds detail by adding numbers like nine ducks and two straight lines.

5) The poet seems to zoom in closer to the farm in his memory when he mentions a hen that stares into oblivion. This description has metaphorical connation in which the hen is an extended metaphor to a thoughtless mind.

6) The poet uses kinaesthetic imagery to describe the hen picking up a grain or some food. Almost like an afterthought he mentions the emergence of action from an empty sky.

7) Using enjambment the poet describes a swallow swooping down and flying in front of him. This kinaesthetic imagery is an extended metaphor for a stray thought that suddenly arises in a blank mind.

8) Continuing with the kinaesthetic imagery and using enjambment he describes the movement of the bird (thought) through the barn (mind).He continues to describe the potential of our thoughts to appear and disappear effortlessly.

9) Typical of a curtal sonnet, the poet now introduces the fact that he is a part of this experience. He uses tactile imagery to describe the setting.

10) His apprehension on how a random thought could disturb the peace and serenity that the poet feels in the setting.

11) The poet once more resorts to a metaphor describing a grasshopper that symbolizes the human mind with blank space waiting to be filled.

12) Using enjambment and continuing with a metaphorical connotation he describes an insect that takes to flight, indicating the readiness of the human mind to get preoccupied with thought.

13) Like a typical sonnet the last stanza discloses the true meaning of the imagery and connotations. The poet reveals that the sights and sounds of the farm enable him to realize that the human soul is shrouded by experiences that form layers over ones personality during a lifetime.

14-15) The poet describes how experiences in our lives are collected in time and if man chooses to contentiously look within and uses a metaphysic hand one would be able to open the doors to the soul and discover the true ‘self’

16)The poet expresses his own experience in doing so by mentioning his discovery of his true self beneath the pile of experiences gathered over time.