The Wanton Sublime

by Anna Rabinowitz

Hail Mary!
The Wanton Sublime: A Florilegium of Whethers and Wonders by Anna Rabinowitz
By Patria Rivera, a Catholic Register Special

Anna Rabinowitz's book of poems, The Wanton Subime: A Florilegium of Whethers and Wonders, invites us into a world that has been considered sacrosanct for devout believers: the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, Mother of God. In looking at Mary as fact and concept, as symbol and as flesh-and-blood human being,Rabinowitz draws from various sources—odes,tracts, treatises, discourses, paintings—and a variety of poetic forms to reconstruct Mary's life, including a long poem on what could have transpired when the Archangel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary.

The first poem in the collection, "Of plunder and precinct," sets up the scene in this unfolding world – a far meadow, a bright room, a hillside, “a woman in a field of flowers interrupted and carried away.”

     Flowers in the mind — in the meadow a room
     is plucked and carried empty to welcome a lie. Her guest
     rules over strength and beauty. And so kept by nature
     she had played Woman. It begins far away. She a truth
     from a place that serves lilies

Early on, the poem tells of how the woman “played and plucked — lilles from silence,” and in the third stanza, injects an aphorism:

     It is a lie that serves the truth
     Beauty by nature rules over strength
     the truth that serves beauty is a lie
     Nature by its strength overrules.

So “unarmed, unwarned / must she yield –/ must she stop?” As the woman in the poem takes stock of her inward promptings, she lnvestigates the nature of her predlcament– "Green are the grasses of grief”– and traverses the fluctuating boundaries between her inner and outer worlds:

     because of must /
     because of be /
     ...favoured /
     chosen....

Wanton is variously defined as "unruly," "intractable," "refractory," "recalcitrant," "headstrong," "wayward." These adjectives mean resistant or marked by resistance to control. Sublime, on the other hand, is equated to "inspiring awe," "sacred," "raised high" or "ultimate example." As the poems progress (elsewhere a florilegium has been described as a "collection of writings, little flowers of composition, choice poems or epigrams by various authors), questions arise as "the event alights," as shown in the poem, "from A GALLERY OF UPPER CASE SCAFFOLDING AS ANOMALOUS VERSE." In a play on the letter "R," the poet situates Mary thus:

     Robed in R /
     wrapped in R /
     rapt by R/
     entrapped /
      and captive there /

As in a "letter liquid sensing head... a head rousing," a "haunt of languor in a witting/witted set," the woman/Mary becomes aware or conscious of something, that something is being done intentionally, deliberately, as if a being is hovering, gilding the room: "An apparition in a splash of cloud... / THE LIGHT CANNOT BE EXPLAINED, IT CAN ONLY BE SEEN," / and that she cannot "will the willing," that there is "NO EXIT COMING BACK." As she looks to seek the light, the woman turn her eyes to "Faithful white / ever brightening, / obedient, / dense, / intense," the "flake white flowers purl through sour vinegar, / cerussa, cerosa, album plumbum, / albus, glaucus, leucos...." — all shades of white, as "hues take cues / to be claimed anew." The speaker sees white transformed from faithful white to dense white which somehow prefigures the passion and death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

The book also offers a looking glass into the ways people express and live their faith. In "from MIRROR OF THE WORLD," the poet alludes to the ways people in those days had been taught to deal willl heavenly or godly matters. Another poem, "La Morenita, Little Darkllng," speaks of how "The divine descends as weather / A sudden rain flecked with gold / A chill plunged through smoldering, sparking fire..."

In "THE WOVEN CHILD,"the speaker asks the woman's child:

      Listen: Thou shalt never forget thy mother and what she has done for thee...
     For she carried thee long beneath her heart as a heavy burden
     and after thy months were accomplished she bore thee.
     Three long years she carried thee upon her shoulder
     and gave thee her breast to thy mouth
     and thy size increased her heart never once allowed her to say
     "Why should I do this?"
     She is and remains a mother
     even though her child die...."

ln long, meditative poems, interspersed with jagged lines and fragments, the poet conjures a flinty narrative that probes and digresses as the poet tries to get into the essential humanity of Mary. Sometimes poems break into half lines, run up and down the page, roughing up the rhythms in riffs and contrapuntal notes.

Through a lively use of assonance and alliteration,the poet's lines expand and deepen, allowing for a smooth transition from one image to another: "And as she had awakened me with her voice so she guided me with her light" (from "The Canto of the Pearl").

The most expertly composed and musical lines in th ecollection seem to spring up in the poem titled, "from A PROLEGOMENON OF BENEDICTINE LITURGY FROM A PEREGRINE SONG":

     Thou art the window, the door and the veil,
     the courtyard and the house, the temple,the earth,

     lily in thy virginity, rose by sufferings....
      ...Thou art the break of day, the light that knows no darkness."

Lyric and free verses weave gainfully togetherin precise but thoughtful poems as when the speaker questions how the artists of old depicted Mary in "from a Treatise on Painting":

     It is time to speak of the lies
      Of images, omissions, insertions-
     imitations of realily...
     –Botticelli, Campin, van Eyck–for you
     she's indoors all decked out in luscious silk and satin,
     surrounded by finery – tied-back drapery, carved benches
     a rug or tiles floor, loggias..."

when in her life, most likely, "there's red from madder juice/ and yellow from kaolin clay/ and a linen shift all frayed...."

But what perhaps best sums up Mary's llfe comes from these end lines from the poem:

     For the child she will have boundless love
     For posterity the memory of being
     For her life no proper translation.

The expanding discourse allows the poet to pit the truths and the falsehoods that have been posited in the quest to ascertain why Mary was given this task – why Mary of all women? The real, true song of Mary resonates because Mary as virgin and mother, a woman from a lowly household, is transformed by her obedience to the divine Word, by her unwavering faith, her willingness to do God's will. Indeed, "the light need not be explained."

Mary in her quest for the light, in her selfless love for God and her compassion for others, her capacity for bearing the greatst sorrows, illumines by her example. She has thus become a model not only for women but for all humankind. To those who have a firm view of Mary's role in salvation history, some of the poems' stark imagery may appear to push the boundaries, but to those who want to probe deeper into their faith, The Wanton Sublime poses challenges that may even strengthen their belief.