Through the Son: an Explication of Margaret Avison's "Person"

by C. David Mazoff

A glance at the corpus of critical work on Margaret Avison¹ reveals that although there is some specific treatment of her Christian poetry, nevertheless, not much in-depth attention has been paid to her poem "Person." Although Doerkson,² Redekop³ and Kertzer,⁴ for example, discuss the Christian elements in her poetry, and, both Redekop⁵ and Jones⁶ the poem "Person" in particular, neither they nor other critics have discussed "Person" in as much detail as it deserves. "Person," a refreshing and deeply moving poem, concerns itself with the Christian experience of salvation; it is, formally speaking, both an extended metaphor on, and a dogmatic exegesis of, John 10:1-18 where Christ is revealed as both the divine shepherd and the door to salvation. "Person" might well be Margaret Avison's poetic account of her own salvation experience, her testimony, as it were.⁷

     In 1966, Margaret Avison published The Dumbfounding,⁸ a collection of poems whose emphasis is clearly on the Christian spiritual experience. For those familiar with her earlier volume, Winter Sun,⁹ this collection comes as a pleasant surprise; it represents the discovery at the end of the search, and authenticates the genuine experience of both the search and the discovery. As Doerkson points out, "far from being tacked on as a 'Christian' afterthought to her previous verse . . . Avison's later poems seem to grow out of her earlier searching ones in a sequence which, if not that of simple cause and effect, is yet that of authentic experience."¹⁰  And Kertzer comments that "to call the early poetry religious is not merely to engage in hindsight."¹¹ That Avison had an encounter with the "Jesus of resurrection power," and that this experience changed her attitude not only to herself, but also to her art, both past and present, is a well-documented fact. As Laurence Jones states, "under the influence of the refocusing caused by this experience, [Avison] looks back upon her previous life and work and notes 'how grieviously I cut off his way by honouring the artist' and sees her past as a 'long wilful detour into darkness.' "¹²

     In this essay, I would like to show how Avison skilfully interprets this religious experience through her poet's craft. Through the control of language, form and rhetoric, Avison is able to weave Christian doctrine, with its specific language, metaphors and images, into the body of her poem and to present the completed work as a unified whole, rather than as a disguised homiletic. As Kertzer observes, "to understand and appreciate [Avison's poems] fully, we must recognize their intricacy. We must trace the implications of each word, allusion, and Biblical echo, and admire the craft that has composed them so subtly."¹³

This the first stanza of "Person" is a complete sentence describing a pastoral scene. The "hill" as well as the "sheepfold," an already enclosed structure, are enclosed by the "open sky." The sense is of containment, of restriction over and against a sense of freedom. The use of long vowels, liquids and consonance sets the soft, rolling, gentle and full tone of the stanza, while the use of plosives, dentals and nasals gives it contour. Other devices used are rhyme and paranomasia. It is difficult not to elide the l's from "hill" with the l of "lie." This gives rise to an alternate reading: ". . . [I] / under open sky." Reading the poem this way places the narrator in the same relationship to the "open sky" as both the "sheepfold and [the] hill."

This door that is "I AM"
seemed to seal my tomb
my ceilinged cell
(not enclosed earth, or hill)

The narrator perceives himself¹⁵ to be either entombed or imprisoned, and the place of enclosure is sealed by a "door that is 'I AM'". The narrator describes his place of confinement as neither a grave — that is, "not enclosed earth" — nor a "hill." If we complete the implied parallel, then cell" is a metaphor for "hell," while ''ceilinged'' refers to "sky." And yet, though not "tomb" or "cell," the place of confinement is somehow like them. "Tomb" of course refers to a place where the body is laid to rest; "cell" can refer either to a prison or to a monastic cell, both of which share the same purpose of disciplining the flesh in the attempt to transform or purify the soul. The narrator is unclear as to whether or not this state of confinement is actual, since the sole object preventing his escape is the "door" which only "seemed to seal [his] tomb."

     This stanza is replete with rhetorical and figurative devices, such as rhyme, consonance and repetition. Paradoxically, while the subject matter, death and/or incarceration, is, to say the least, gloomy, the language used to describe it is not, primarily because of the use of sibilants, liquids and bilabials, which smooth out the tone and give the stanza a spellbinding effect; however, this mood is offset by the tension created by the use of falling rhythm, which amplifies both the narrator's shock and the ideas associated with "tomb" and "cell." The rhyme scheme is aabb, with mosaic slant rhyme on "I AM" and "my tomb," and slant rhyme on "cell" and "hill."

     There are several puns in the stanza which amplify the puzzling nature of the narrator's confinement: the "door" both seals and ceils the "tomb," a "tomb" which may or may not be sealed, and, thus, which might or might not be a "tomb." The idea of the "door" being the ceiling is taken up in stanza three with "A skied stonehenge / unroofed the prison?", while the idea of the sky as a limiting factor is implied in stanza one and reinforced by the pun therein. Furthermore, the slant rhyme "cell" and "hill" is really begging to be read "cell" and hell; considering the subject matter of the stanza, hell would fit quite well. Lastly, it should be noted that the type of rhyme used with "I AM" is appropriately called mosaic.

     A clue to the meaning of this stanza can be found in Exodus 3:13-14, where the God of Israel reveals Himself to Moses as "I AM." The words, "I am," also appear in John 8:58, where Jesus says, "Verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am." This phrase, "I AM," is the English rendering of YHWH (Yahweh, Jehovah), the tetragrammaton, which is taken to represent the fullness of God's being, as well as His name; it is in fact a contraction of the varius forms of the Hebrew verb "to exist," "to be," or "to become."¹⁶  Let it suffice to adduce Rev. 1:14: "Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is and which was, and which is to come." The phrase, "I AM," presents us with a twofold vision: the God of Moses, and the person of Jesus. It is significant that Moses is remembered for the law which he gave, while Jesus is known for His love. All of this is, in my view, the reason for the narrator's perplexity: the very thing that condemns him — the law of God, "this door that is 'I AM' "— is the very thing that offers him freedom: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me" (John 14:6). If we accept the identification of Jesus with the "I AM" of the Old Testament, then imagery which would otherwise be recondite and abstruse becomes crystal clear. For instance, why should the narrator be in a "cell" or in a "tomb" in the first place?

     The Bible tells us that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23) and that, having done such, they are worthy of death: "for the wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23). The Bible declares that we "were made sinners" through "one man's [Adam's] disobedience" and that, as a result of this disobedience, the law entered (Rom. 5:20). Furthermore, the nature of this law is that we are condemned by it: "by the deeds of the law there shall be no flesh justified in His sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20). Thus, even if we tried to escape, we would not know how to go about it, since our fallen reason has left us spiritually blind (Rom. 7:15-25). However, the Bible also states that there is good news: even though the human race is condemned to death, God has nevertheless promised salvation to those who believe in Him: "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 6:23). Bearing the above in mind, it can be seen that stanza one is a depiction of the period known as ante lego, or before the Law, and that the "I" hidden away in this pastoral paradise is the narrator in the person of Adam, while stanza two deals with the postlapsarian predicament of man.

Perhaps the most striking elements of this stanza are its awkward rhythm and jagged syntax, both of which convey the confusion created by the paradoxical and cryptic events they attempt to describe. The first line of this stanza links it to the previous stanza, this line being a statement about the "door" in stanza two. This "door" is not like other doors with which we are familiar; it has "no knob, or hinge": no apparent way of being opened. In the second line of stanza three there is a shift in perspective. Something is happening, and the narrator gropingly attempts to describe it. Of note is the word play on "no" and "knob," and the pun on "lo" — that is, low, and its antithetical relationship to "uprising." These serve to augment the paradoxical nature of the narrator's perspective shifts. There is slant rhyme between "prison" and "uprising," with puns on risen and rising, and slant rhyme, also, between "hinge" and "stonehenge," the latter suggesting the word stonehinge.

     There is a great sense of movement in the stanza: it appears as if the sky is descending to touch the prison"; or, is the "prison" rising to touch the sky, or both? In my view, the narrator is describing a mystical vision during which he is given some understanding of the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection (Acts 2:31). Again, Scripture provides some clues as to what is going on at this point in the poem; but for "stonehenge" we must go elsewhere. Robert Graves argues that the groundplan of Stonehenge suggests a temple,¹⁷ but that it contains dolmens, "A dolmen [being] a burial chamber, a 'womb of Earth,' consisting of a cap-stone supported on two or more uprights, in which a dead hero is buried . . . like a foetus in the womb, awaiting rebirth".¹⁸ It thus becomes clear that "stonehenge" represents a spiritual presence, and, more important, the promise of resurrection. We might also remember that the temple cult at Stonehenge revolved about sacrifice; thus "stonehenge" carries associations not only of rebirth but also of atonement.

     In the Old Testament there are many prophecies which concern the promise and the nature of the Messiah. One of these, Isaiah 28:16, describes Him as a "cornerstone," and Psalm 118:22 and Acts 4:11 as the "head stone." We also remember that Jehovah Himself is continually referred to as the "rock" (Ps. 18:2, 92:15, 94:22). (One is tempted to suggest the analogy, here, that as the Son is to the Father, so is the stone to the rock; but this is tricky theology and best left to the divines.) There is another group of scriptures in the Bible which speak of the people of God in need of redemption. In Habakkuk 2:11,19, they are spoken of as being so ossified that the very stones themselves are more responsive to God's spirit than they. In the New Testament the people of God, His Church, are identified as these living stones, transformed from death into life by His spirit, having Christ as their "head" (Eph. 2:1, 1 Pet. 2:5-6, 2 Cor. 5:1, Eph. 5:23).

     It should now be obvious that the reference to "stonehenge" is to its cap-stone, Christ, the chief cornerstone of the Church, while "prison" refers to His "tomb" — to the mystery of His vicarious atonement and resurrection — and the living "stone" to the promise of the Spirit. In other words, the reference to the "skied stonehenge unroof[ing] the prison" is really a metaphor for the dispensation of God's grace as a result of the sacrificial shedding of Christ's blood. As we shall see, this poem makes it quite clear that Christ is not only the foundation and the crown of the Christian spiritual experience but also its only means of access.

They closed again.  Beneath
steel tiers, all walled, I lay
barred, every way.

     To my mind, the pun on "tiers," i.e., tears appears to be extremely significant. Is the narrator trapped by his "steel" tears, i.e., his unrepentant heart, his will, ego, or sense of self? Or, is he trapped, innocently and justifiably, by forces outside and independent of himself? In other words, is he a plaything of the gods, or did he somehow merit this imprisonment? The Bible says that the heart of man is "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jer. 17:9). We also remember that Jesus is not only the "I AM," but also the "door" (John 10:7) and "the way" (John 14:6). We are again presented with the paradox that the very thing that confines the narrator is also the means of his deliverance: he is "barred, every way" from The Way. But the Bible also declares God to be a God of mercy, a God who sees the tears of his children: "In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him even unto his ears" (Ps. 18:6).

For those familiar with John 1:14 and 2 Cor. 5:19 this stanza should present no ambiguities or surprises. But before looking more closely at the scriptural allusions in this stanza, I would like to comment on some of its formal aspects.

     It is notable that there is a similarity between line three and line fifteen of the poem. Both contain basically the same words: "This door that is 'I AM'," and," 'I am.' The door," and both follow a rhymed couplet. In line three, the transition has been from a state of Innocence, ante lego, to the state of being under the Law, sub lego; in line fifteen the transition is from sub lego to sub gratia, from under the Law to under Grace: "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8:2). The stanza itself is simple; it is not connected with either the preceeding or following stanzas through rhyme or syntax. The event described in the stanza is unique and self-authenticating. The anaphora places emphasis on the reality of the presence and being of Christ: "was flesh; was there."

Notable here is the anaphora and the paragmenon in the first two lines, as well as strains reminiscent of George Herbert. I have advanced the idea that the mystical vision in stanza three came to an end, and I still hold to that. What we have here is another "vision", if you will, and yet no vision, for the incarnation was not a vision: "the door / was flesh; was there." I prefer to call what is going on in this stanza a Christian mystical experience: an encounter with the living Christ — an ineffable, yet noetic, experience occurring within the depths of the narrator's being that focuses on the "personal reality of Christ."¹⁹  Although there is no movement along any of the dimensional planes with which we are familiar — i.e., the vertical, "no latch lifts," or the horizontal, "no hinges swing" — nevertheless a passage, a "way" of escape, is provided for the "captive." Because this passage does not lie within the realm of our reason, we are blind to it — as were the Pharisees to whom Jesus spoke in John 9:39-41. What is being asked here is that we be ready to move in a new way: a way in which "nothing moves." The reason that "no hinges swing, no latch / lifts, [and] nothing moves," is that the described movement occurs through the person of Christ: we shall "go in and out," and in and through Him (John 10:9). Elsewhere, the Bible says that we are in Him as He is in the Father, and that He is also in us (John 14:11, 17, 20). The movement, which is no movement, is a movement of states of being; it is not a physical relocation: "in Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). This is reflected in the shift in narrative voice away from the first person narrator to a position of omniscience.

     It is this stanza which reveals the reliance of this poem on the ideas in John 10: 1-18. In John 10:1-18, Jesus is called both the "good shepherd" and the "door," both of the sheepfold and of the sheep. This stanza also comments on the fact that this finding of the way is not up to the "captive." The "captive" is blind because he is caught in the snare of deception and illusion inherited from the Fall, and, because he is blind, he cannot save himself. What we have here is the argument for sola fides, and the problem of postlapsarian epistemology: the "captive" can only be rescued by Christ (Eph. 4:8).

In that iambic pentameter, as the usual rhythm of the English language, is seen to be the most natural way to put words together, it is only fitting that this line, which refers to the work of the Word incarnate, should also be perfectly regular in its form. We note that the line is also the seventh stanza — the number seven signifying perfection. Because this line is syntactically part of the previous stanza while it rhymes with the first line of stanza eight, it links the two. In fact, this line is the means by which the "captive" is able to join the "flock" of stanza eight. The captive "find[s] the way" not because of anything he does, but because of the grace of God.²⁰   "Through" is emphasized because it is only "through" Christ that humanity has access to the Father: it is only "through" the "door" that one can approach the great "I AM": "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture" (John 10:9). If we but reflect for a moment on one of the forms of Christian prayer, the above is obvious; prayers addressed to the Father are in Jesus' name: "through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." Avison is most probably punning on the title, "Person," here: redemption occurs when both God and the captive meet through (per) the Son (1 Tim. 2:5).

So drenched with Being and created new
the flock is folded close, and free
to feed — His cropping clay, His earth —
and to the woolly, willing bunt-head, forth
shining, unseen, draws near the Morning Star.

In this last stanza consisting of one sentence in six lines, we return to the sheepfold; but it is fuller, "drenched with Being," newer, "created new," freer, "free to feed" and at peace. This peace is symbolized by the "Morning Star" which is traditionally associated with divine protection, love, and salvation and which serves, in the Bible, as a symbol of Christ Himself (Rev. 22:16). The stanza is replete with poetic devices. All the lines end in slant rhyme except for line two. Perhaps this is to emphasize the uniqueness of this line even more; true spiritual freedom is not like anything else: either one has it or one does not. The enjambment from line two to line three, "free / to feed," as well as the internal rhyme therein, emphasizes the purpose of this freedom — i.e., the freedom to partake of God's creation — while the enjambment from line four to five accentuates the forward motion implied by "forth." The gentle, peaceful tone is created and sustained by rhythmic smoothness, alliteration and internal rhyme, while the abundance of liquids, fricatives and bilabials, and the variety of vowel sounds, give this stanza an intensely rich texture: one that is "drenched" with sound. The paradoxical phrase about the "bunt-head" is appropriately followed by a caesura; at this point there is a shift in both perspective and subject. This is echoed by a return to the short line — a paradoxical move if, as it would appear, a state of perfection has been achieved. The Scriptures tell us that those who are "born again . . . of the water and of the Spirit" (John 3:3-5), those who are "drenched with [His] Being" (John 14:20), become, as it were, a new creation, "created new":

     "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Cor. 5:17). "The flock is folded close," contains a witty pun on "folded," i.e., fold, sheepfold, flock, and alludes to the special relationship of the sheep to God, their pastor, the maker and ruler of all the earth (Ps. 24:1, 89:11, 1 Cor. 10:26,28). This "flock" is "free to feed" that they might be both God's harvest, and His harvesters. The double entendre on "cropping clay" revolves about two commands to the Christian: he is first to feed on the Word of God, to read the Scriptures and to take them to heart (Ps. 119, 1 Pet. 2:2, 1 Cor. 3:2), and then he is to feed others, to preach the Gospel, the good news of salvation (1 Pet. 5:2, John 21:15-17, Rom. 10:13-15). But there is another meaning to "feed" here: Communion. The "earth" and "clay" are the body of Christ, the "bread of life" (John 6:35). God is no longer someone to be feared; rather He is to be known intimately. In that "bunt-head" means desultory, as well as identifying the sheep, this "flock" is comprised of "willing" but unmethodical and sheep-like sheep. These sheep, however, represent people: redeemed, saved and justified people, but also people who are aimless, fitful, rambling and erratic. Perhaps no one has stated with more acumen the predicament of these sheep than St. Paul when he details the conflict of sin in the believer (Rom. 7:15-25). The Christian, though redeemed, is still human, still "bunt-head[ed]": his spirit may indeed be "willing," but his flesh is weak (Matt. 26:41).

     The poem has already shown us that the captive was incapable of saving himself; what it is saying here is neither can he maintain this state alone. The last two lines return us to the flock; however, rather than being under the Law, rather than their existence being one of imprisonment, in this new creation, the "flock" is being watched over by a "door" that is love, while they await the redemption of their bodies (Rom. 8:23) and the return of the victorious Christ. This is made clear by the use of one of Christ's epithets, the "Morning Star," and by referring to Him as "shining," which signifies His righteousness.

     The poem, then, as well as presenting us with the eternal plan of salvation for the believer, also presents us with a gloss on the contemporary situation: that of the nominal Christian in today's ossified church. We can see that the "cell" of stanza two, and the "stone" of stanza three both refer to the church devoid of God's presence, while the "sheepfold" of stanza one and the "flock" of stanza eight refer to the intimate spiritual possibilities of man and God. Thus the poem becomes specifically about the narrator's search for meaning within a spiritually dead tradition and about the finding of spiritual regeneration through the ''person" of Christ.

1. Frances Mansbridge, "Margaret Avison: An Annotated Bibliography," The Annotated Bibliography of Canada's Major Authors, ed. Robert Lecker and Jack David, (Toronto: ECW Press, 1985), VI, 13-66.[back]
   
   
2. Daniel W. Doerkson, "Search and Discovery: Margaret Avison's Poetry," Poets and Critics: Essays from Canadian Literature 1966-1974, ed. George Woodcock (Toronto: Oxford UP, 1974), pp. 123-137.[back]
   
   
3. Ernest Redekop, Margaret Avison, Studies in Canadian Literature 9 (Toronto: Copp Clark, 1970).[back]
   
   
4. J.M. Kertzer, "Margaret Avison: Power, Knowledge and the Language of Poetry," Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews, No. 4 (Spring-Summer 1979), pp. 29-44; "Margaret Avison," Profiles in Canadian Literature, ed. Jeffrey M. Heath, (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1980), II, 33-40.[back]
   
   
5. Redekop 112-113.[back]
   
   
6. Lawrence M. Jones, "A Core of Brilliance: Margaret Avison's Achievement," Canadian Literature 38 (1968), 51.[back]
   
   
7. Considering that Jones acknowledges that "Person" "seems to . . . be the poetic record of the liberation experience of 1963," it is unfortunate that he does not examine this poem in more detail.[back]
   
   
8. Margaret Avison, The Dumbfounding (New York: Norton, 1966).[back]
   
   
9. Margaret Avison, Winter Sun (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1960).[back]
   
   
10. Doerkson 127.[back]
    
    
11. Kertzer, "Margaret Avison: Power, Knowledge and the Language of Poetry," Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews, No. 4 (Spring-Summer 1979), p. 33.[back]
    
    
12. Jones 51.[back]
    
    
13. Kertzer, "Margaret Avison," Profiles in Canadian Literature, ed. Jeffrey M. Heath, (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1980), II, 37.[back]
    
    
14. Margaret Avison, "Person," The Dumbfounding (New York: Norton, 1966), p. 52.[back]
    
    
15. Although there is a strong biographical element to this poem, nevertheless, the narrator must be seen as male. A close look at stanza 7 reveals that "he" refers to "the captive" of stanza 6 who is the "I" of stanzas 2 to 4. This "I," as I point out on p. 6 of this essay is the narrator in the person of Adam: humanity.[back]
    
    
16. " (hayah)," Strong's Concordance (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1980).[back]
    
    
17. Robert Graves, The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth (Toronto: McGraw-Hill, 1966), p. 288.[back]
    
    
18. Graves, p. 213.[back]
    
    
19. C.G. Thorne Jr. "Mysticism," The New International Dictionary of the Chritstian Church, ed. J.D. Douglas (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974), p. 692.[back]
    
    
20. See Psalm 68:18 which is interpreted by Christians as a prophecy about how Christ would "ascend on high" after he "led captivity captive."[back]