by InspiredWritingResearch

Created on: April 23, 2007   Last Updated: May 14, 2007

POEM REVIEW PIANO by DH LAWRENCE Avoiding Sentimentality in Poetry

PIANO

Sadly in the dark, a woman is singing to me:
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong

To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cozy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

This poem was written by the English author David Herbert Lawrence (1885 - 1930),
perhaps better known for his first novel, his masterpiece - "Sons and Lovers" and also for the more controversial "Lady Chatterley's Lover."

Although written in a time when lifestyles were very different, particularly for women, and the class system still held sway - how is it that this poem can still bring a lump to the throat and engender strong feelings of pathos and nostalgia ?

One of the first rules in contemporary poetry we are advised, is to avoid sentimentality at all costs, cloying sweetness, cliches and self-pity must never find their way into high calibre poetry. Yet, one of the main messages of poets down the ages of time has been to speak simply and directly to us of human emotion. How do we achieve the delicate balance between expressing empathy and indulging in a wallow of self-pity and emotional diatribe?

One possibility for Lawrences success in this could be that he is speaking the truth. Those of us who admire the poem may do so because we perceive that he is speaking from his own genuine experience, because we recognise it. We have been there too. The word "boom" and the description of the feet and pedals suggests to us that he WAS that child, as he has drawn the sketch so accurately. We can almost feel the vibrations in our arms and legs as we read through the poem. He doesn't just tell us about the experience - he helps us to BE there with him.

The rhythm of the poem has a slow, reflective quality, accentuated by the punctuation. He mentions dangerously emotive words such as "heart" and "weeps" without saying that this is what he is doing at this moment. To those who have happy memories of childhood days at home, he is pulling the heartstrings.

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