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Current Forum: Poetry and Technology Forum |
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Date: Sat Nov 10 200_ 9:02 pm |
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Author: Al |
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Subject: Re: Poetry Project |
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Hello Classmates I believe that Marianne Moore writes about the feelings a New York observer
may have experienced during the time of construction and opening of
the Brooklyn Bridge. The bridge, one of the first suspension bridges
ever built and for seven years the longest bridge in the world (Brooklyn Bridge - Templin's Technology Web), was designed
by John Roebling, who was also the inventor of steel cable (Brooklyn Bridge - Great Buildings Online). She writes about
the bridge as if it is a wondrous monument that possesses terrific power.
There is a foreboding feeling for the unfamiliar structure when she
refers to the bridge as a caged sorceress. Moore progresses by admiring
the form of the bridge (O catenary curve) and at the same time comparing
its perfection to man's shortcomings (enemy of unscrupulous greed, unwise
priorities). This comparison may have been a statement about man's desire
and folly to build such a structure. In the last stanza, she overcomes
apprehension and welcomes the bridge, admiring its usefulness, its beauty,
and the engineering required to create it. This last sentiment, nervous apprehension and at the same time curious
and wanting to experience the new invention, is eerily what many may
have felt the day the bridge opened to the public in 1883. The opening
"was marred by the deaths of twelve pedestrians, who were trampled
during a panic set off by a shouted warning, anonymous and groundless,
that the bridge was in danger of imminent collapse." (Brooklyn Bridge - Great Buildings Online) I personally remember
attending the opening of the Hampton Coliseum in 1970. My father took
me to see Jack Benny perform one of his last live shows. Because it
was constructed on reclaimed land, many, including famed psychic Jean
Dixon, believed the building would collapse on opening night. Some refused
to attend because of the concern. Without the accompanying image of the Brooklyn Bridge online, I would
not have known which bridge Moore referred to in "Granite and Steel."
These images, and others found
online, do reflect the mass and strength evoked in Moore's poem. It
was the picture of bridge construction that piqued my interest in the
poem. The workers walking the suspension cables reminded me of my own
stage-building experience on the hull sides of aircraft carriers, and
of performing various crane operations at Newport News Shipbuiding.
Al hum105 |
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