Note #1

“Any fool can get into an ocean . . .”

1925–1965 Jack Spicer

Any fool can get into an ocean

But it takes a Goddess

To get out of one.

What’s true of oceans is true, of course,

Of labyrinths and poems. When you start swimming

Through riptide of rhythms and the metaphor’s seaweed

You need to be a good swimmer or a born Goddess

To get back out of them

Look at the sea otters bobbing wildly

Out in the middle of the poem

They look so eager and peaceful playing out there where the

water hardly moves

You might get out through all the waves and rocks

Into the middle of the poem to touch them

But when you’ve tried the blessed water long

Enough to want to start backward

That’s when the fun starts

Unless you’re a poet or an otter or something supernatural

You’ll drown, dear. You’ll drown

Any Greek can get you into a labyrinth

But it takes a hero to get out of one

What’s true of labyrinths is true of course

Of love and memory. When you start remembering.

 

 

This poem directly compares the vast ocean to a flowing poem, in which a person of little knowledge and experience would fall a victim to the great traps and unfamiliar habitat that the ocean presents. Immediately, Spicer directly compares the ocean to a confusing labarynth and a poem rich in literary elements, saying that poems riptide-like rhythms and "the metaphor's seaweed" are extremely hard to navigate through. Such a comparison establishes a feeling that oceans and poems alike can both drag you around in different directions (literally and figuratively) and can cause you to get stuck when faced with unfamiliar obstacles, whether it be a forest of seaweed or a confusing metaphor. Further on in the poem, Spicer then completely replaces the word "ocean" with "poem" in order to impound into the reader's mind that oceans and poems are practically the same things. Spicer also states that one must be a "Goddess" in order to escape the clutches of the ocean, almost as if the ocean is a trap that consumes all  foolish mortals that falls within its clutches. Spicer then ties this idea into poetry by saying that when out in the middle of the "poem" you must be a poet to get back. This means that in order to escape, or fully understand the poem, you must be or think like a poet. Any man foolish man can wander out to sea or start reading a poem, but you must know how to swim or know how to interpret poetry in order to get back. Similarly, Spicer begins to close by saying that "Any Greek can get you into a labyrinth, but it takes a hero to get out of one." Spicer not only tries to communicate the similarity of the ocean to poems and labyrinths, he tries to bellow out that a person must truly be able to understand and grasp the concept of what he is doing in order to get the whole experience. Anyone can get themselves into a situation as such, but it requires much more experience and preparation to be able to complete such feats.