Journal XVI: "Toads in Springtime"
The Writer is Deconstructing
Spring, thank God—whatever that is.
Toads in Springtime
Beneath the grey old raincoat: Two green gumboots — muddy wallow.
This poem was written in 2019. I was working in a french fry factory as a machine operator1 and each night I would pace the production floor, waiting for my machine to go down2, thinking3. The product of one such stint of thought was the poem above.
This Journal has been resurrected from the husk of another post I began drafting years ago. That post was for my Wordpress space at the time—a hopeless blog called Quite.
I wrote4 Toads in Springtime in late-Winter. I was trying to finish it before the end of shift5 and managed to finalize the draft around thirty minutes before clocking out. This poem is one of my personal favourites. Originally, I had wanted to begin a series where I deconstructed my poems and discussed their invention: my choices in their crafting. It was a pretentious and shameless idea. Nonetheless, I felt Toads in Springtime would be a fun inaugural piece for such a series. I also knew it would be a simpler deconstruction than any of my longer poems (especially now, as my longer poems have become abundant)6.
For the purposes of this Journal, we will discuss the poem and peel some of it away to see what’s inside. Then, we shall discuss the effort of reevaluating one’s inventions.
Toads in Springtime contains several elements that have become minor motifs in my writing, and the actual prosody of the poem contains several techniques that offer a fair example. Let's begin with the poem entire.
I know it is an inspired poem, not one I crafted on a whim but through a direct and deliberate course of thought. Like a river that has many branches but one body, I navigated a path along the surest and safest waters. I remember this. The poem follows an haiku-like form inspired by the Imagism movement7 of the early 20th century, here rather obtusely displaying the influence of Pound.
My original draft for this post suggests I believed at one point that it took me six hours to craft the whole poem. I do believe this, though I feel I was a bit arrogant in my original draft. Six hours seems correct—it would have been half a shift at the factory.
The core concept is simple, being the title of the poem.8 Initially, I had wanted this to be a true haiku, following a 5-7-5 structure with a kireji (the seasonal nature of the poem would be rather evident). In my original notes for the poem (tragically lost in a waste-bin accident9), there are several incarnations of this poem as a true haiku. I cannot recall what their content may have been. When I have finalized a poem, I often get rid of the notes that led to it10, sometimes even writing over notes if I am writing poetry on a computer or tablet11. Nonetheless, I know there were several haiku drafts before I came to the conclusion that it would require another form.
A conclusion like this often stems from the development of a line which stirs me to reconsider my approach to the poem. In this case, the first line:
Beneath the grey old raincoat:certainly came from an original haiku draft, most likely as the centre line (as we arrange our haiku as three consecutive lines here in the West). Here, it is the seven syllables of the line which satisfy my theory where my memory cannot. I recall becoming infatuated with the line, though. My fondness for it compelled me to reorient the whole work from this starting line. From there, everything fell into place. Everything must always follow the first line, so this is no surprise.
Yet, what is the point of this poem?
The poem entire aims to juxtapose a concept over imagery in hopes that a reader will infer a relationship between the image and the concept. The title introduces the concept: Toads in Springtime. Followed by the first line, we address the image of a "grey old raincoat" which is situated physically above the subject unveiled in line two:
Two green gumboots — muddy wallow.Recalling the concept introduced in our title, we may equate these gumboots to the mud of spring, to a journey through rainy spring weather, or even liken them to toads, holding the raincoat akin to a grey spring sky that showers over them.12
Why then ‘muddy wallow,’ tacked on the end, other than to invoke springtime puddles?13 Beyond informing the reader that the pair of boots wallow in the mud they've collected, the phrasing muddy wallow suggests an onomatopoeia. This I will not further speak on. I feel it is up to the reader to decide what they interpret from the poem's full use of descriptive/evocative language.14
Mechanically, there is a significant amount of alliteration and assonance throughout my two lines. The first is rather obtuse, found in "grey old" and "raincoat" in line one. In line two, the use of "green" recalls the "Beneath" of line one, echoed once more in "muddy," later in the line. Following, "wallow" recalls "raincoat" through its syllabic rhyme toward the long ō vowel. And of course, my alliteration does not shy away from the alliteration of grey, green, and gumboots.
Why is any of this worth mentioning? Because I learned these techniques and applied them consciously to the piece as I developed it. Often, I do not care about technique in the writing of something—it doesn’t matter too much for my expression. However, when something catches me in the writing of a thing, when I am overtaken by the realization that I may use technique in a clever (if useless) way, then I gallop along with the notion and often end up quite proud of my cleverness. Sometimes, it is good to be proud of one’s cleverness—just never prideful.
Toads in Springtime is a darling little poem and one that often comes to mind when I consider my work.15 It evokes Spring, to me. It evokes the sacred tension borne from the contradiction of perception and reality—it gives relief. When I read of my green gumboots, I wish to meet these toads: To see them wallow in the mud and croak and fumble across the dirt and water. I can smell the petrichor of April when I read this poem.
I am proud of it.
I revised and re-wrote this deconstruction for such a time as this: The End of Winter. I have longed for Spring. In the past, I never grew weary of Winter the way I have this year. Perhaps it is due to the trial of the Past Year, or the anticipation for gardening, bonfires, and the Moving Sun16. Perhaps it is because Winter has failed to maintain my Passion these past months. Regardless, I wanted to present an old poem: A small meditation for the End of Winter. I wanted to honour what remained of the efforts of a younger Me from a period when I did not write often—when I ceased to see toads in gumboots. I think these are both important to me right now: Meditation & Honour. Both are complicated—far removed from the idealistic tendency we’ve ascribed to them.17
Originally, I had anticipated making a Deconstruction Series for Quite—and so I considered one for this space. I do not think this will happen now. While I have considered annotating poems like 12024 HE, my poetry largely stands independent of such considerations. I do not seek to expunge my tactic—or to write an exegesis for light verse. Moving forward, I hope to generate volume: an Untended Orchid; or, a Constant Ephemera. As my Daoist studies so often remind me: We invent and move on. I do not want to dwell on former writings via deconstruction. Not now, anyway. Future Me may disagree and find a host of meaning in the dissection of older writings. Today, I am moving on.
What is good about revisiting one’s inventions is the prompt they offer the psyche to forgive and overcome one’s past. Whether past emotions, past actions, or past sufferings, the quiet lens of retrospection offers a solace unparalleled in mere introspection. The latter often leads one into a solipsistic individualism that panders to one’s insecurities. Introspection is useful but harrowing and abusive when mislead. I feel fortunate to have a berth of expressions from my past that grant me deep insight into myself not only through memories but impressions also. When I read Toads in Springtime, I am not the man who wrote it. I am just another reader, and that writer compels me. He makes me think, and that’s beautiful given that he’s me, too, somehow.
Art is cool, I guess. I believe the world really would be a ‘better’ place if everyone engaged in some invention: music-making, painting, drawing, poetry, storytelling, gardening, cooking, etc. These are deeply engaging aspects of our conscious potential. It is wasteful to avoid a thing because of others’ relationships to it—of course, I mean that it is a shame to avoid doing things because you think you will do bad while you see others do well. The process of invention is a conversation with self that simply cannot be found in others’ art regardless of how well it speaks to us. To invent is to be. The Spring knows this, and so do Toads and even raincoats. There is no good or bad: only the mind that makes it so.
We must face ourselves over and again. Why not have some fun along the way?
I hope you have a wonderful Spring, Sweet Reader. May the coming rains rinse all of Winter from your dry, chilly skin.
As delightful as it sounds—as greasy as it sounds.
My job consisted of waiting for a machine to go down so I could repair it. We did other things, obviously, but mainly we waited for machines to cease working so we could work. The machines were designed to be used 8-10 hours a day, during working hours. These machines were pressed to shift work, the same as their human operators but for their lack of labour value, and so ran for 24 hours straight. As a consequence, they broke down often enough to warrant a position dedicated solely to their revival.
While I worked there, a man died on shift one evening. He passed away from a sudden heart attack, waiting for the machines to quit. This was radicalizing to me.
Arguably some of my finest—and most practiced—times in the sport.
A so-called Poet might use the ephemeral phrasing, composed.
We worked 7-7, two days and two nights—and then four days off (but really this was three days as the first was spent largely in sleep and uneasy dreaming).
Super meta but it’s funny to me that the original content of these parentheses said: and it helps that I happen to recall much of the process of its creation, reasoning why I chose Toads in Springtime as a starting poem. I happen to recall not much at all about it now.
I am periodically obsessed with “movements”.
What I say next in the original draft is insane to me: But how a poet chooses to personify their concept can often be bogged down in fretful concern and adherence to structure (especially in my case, as I disdain free-verse unless I cannot contain the idea in a particular form).
WHAT?!
I called myself a poet, claimed to disdain free-verse, and came off pretentious as hell. Christ. What have I become? Where did I go right?
Keeping this for posterity, though I think I later recovered these notes amidst my many scraps of paper from the era. Life is funny, and so are humans. I haven’t even bothered to look for them again before working on this post.
Who is this monster?
I do a lot of drafting this way still. Especially in posts like this or in poems, there is no first draft, second draft nonsense. The is the One Draft. We make changes and move one and forget what we left behind. This is not how I work on novels, though. I have to work on novels and short stories in drafts. I hate it.
In the original draft, after this, I add: Even before this, one may also evaluate the lyric at face-value and merely equate the imagery — a raincoat hung above a pair of muddy boots — to a familiar impression of spring attire.
And that seems like an utterly pointless and stupid thing to say.
Why, then, indeed, Younger-Me.
I can lead you to water but you have to sip it yourself.
I do not consider my work often. I fret over future work, but what has been done is often forgotten by me. It isn’t that I don’t care. I just don’t care.
As compared to the White Sun of Winter, solitary general of Life.
For: Meditation happens anywhere, everywhere, and Honour is not a supplicant thing but a deliberate reverence of failure.