"Watching the Dance", James Merrill

Bio: James Merrill (1926-1995) was born the son of Charles E. Merrill, co-founder of Merrill-Lynch brokerage company.  He often switches between writing works of poetry and prose. He has won two National Book Awards, along with several other awards for his works and collections. 

Watching the Dance

1. BALANCHINE'S

Poor savage, doubting that a river flows 

But for the myriad eddies made 

By unseen powers twirling on their toes,

Here in this darkness it would seem

You had already died, and were afraid. 

Be still. Observe the powers. Infer the stream. 

2. DISCOTHÉQUE 

Having survived entirely your own youth,

Last of your generation, purple gloom

Invest you, sit, Jonah, beyond speech,

And let towards the brute volume VOOM whale mouth 

VAM pounding viscera VAM VOOM

A teenage plankton luminously twitch.

In this work, Merrill divides the poem into two sections of two stanzas. They are named after a famous ballet choreographer and teacher, George Balanchaine, and the second for a type of music and dance, discotheque.  The first section has a clear rhyme scheme of A-B-A, C-B-C, most likely because of its namesake, who was very set in his ways and would focus on the beat and order of the music, not on abstract thoughts and movements. There is no definite pattern as far as meter or feet measurement in either section, however, some sections are written in iambic pentameter. The second section, however, has no clear rhyme scheme and includes a few different onomatopoeia in the stanzas. This is most likely because it's namesake, a style of music and dance, can be fluid and/or able to change and be free of restraints limiting what it can and cannot be. Therefore, there is no specific structure or rhyme to the free section of the poem. Considering that this poem is speaking about ballet, it makes some amount of sense that the poem is written the way it is; the first part is structured, as when you first learn to dance and learn the technicalities of the dance; but when you begin to develop and mature in the art, you become more fluid in the dance and learn to move freely within the structures you have learned.