A Lengthy Essay on Gerard Manley Hopkins's "Carrion Comfort"

Read the poem here first.

Disclaimer:

Emily Dickinson once famously said, “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.” And that is how I felt when I first read Hopkins’s “Carrion Comfort.” Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t understand it. But I did sense its importance to me. The soul understands art before I do. I read the poem, didn’t understand a thing, but felt an instant connection to it. “Read this again,” my soul said to me. But I was done with my homework assignment for the night, and I really would rather be knitting, so I closed the anthology and moved on to more important things.

But the poem lurked inside me anyway, and a few weeks later I returned to it. I realized that the poem featured the voice of a person who, like me, like everyone, was struggling: with God, with life, with darkness, with ego. Since my prodigal-daughter-like return to the poem, I’ve sat down to write my reflections on its message to me many times, and each time the product has been something akin to the Mother’s Day gifts I used to bring home from Primary: disjointed, sloppy with glue, loose ends poking out here and there. An analysis of this work seems to not lend itself to any other form, at least for me, so I’ve finally given into the hard-macaroni-dried bean-and-construction paper madness, and here is the product, in all its disorganized glory. It might help to think of each part as a mini-essay, smooshed together into a verbal collage of sorts. In fact, this paper is really long….so if you would rather pick out just one or two sections to read, that’ll probably be sufficient. Don’t feel obligated to swallow the whole thing.

Rhythms of Depression

Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee…

I remember first being seriously depressed as a seventeen-year-old. It was summer and I’d just spent six weeks taking college classes and two weeks touring Europe. I had three weeks left in my summer vacation and didn’t know what to do with myself. So I spent those three weeks lying on the couch, eating, watching inane television shows, eating, taking naps at will, eating, compulsively checking my e-mail, and—you guessed it—eating. I wouldn’t answer the phone. I refused to go out with friends. I even faked sick to avoid going to an early-morning seminary devotional, something I would usually have really looked forward to. The night before school started I didn’t fall asleep until two or three. I stayed up late cleaning, eating melted cheese and tortillas, and trying to make myself vomit.

Returning to life was painful, but a few weeks of grooving in my routine helped pull me out of depression. That summer wasn’t, however, the last time I’d feast on the comfort of despair.

Nowadays—is it really almost six years later?—I find myself walking to school and doggedly keeping rhythm with my steps: “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,” I count, “two, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,” again, “three, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.” As I’ve become accustomed to this new and dark aspect of myself—this demon called depression that has unfolded and enlarged itself throughout my early twenties—I’ve learned to cope with it in certain ways, and rhythms make up the blade on my sword of depression protection. In addition to counting while I walk, I spend much of my free time knitting and crocheting, rhythmically counting out the stitches as I work. And there are biorhythms that are important to me as well: Walk every day. Eat every three hours. Work from one until five. Sleep from midnight until eight. Weekends throw me out of this rhythm and I often find myself breathing a deep sigh of relief when Monday returns and I am able to step back into the “one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight” routine that keeps me from giving in and feasting on carrion comforts.

With this in mind, I find it interesting that one of the most important things that Hopkins did was develop his own poetic rhythm: sprung rhythm. And I find it suitable that Hopkins as played with rhythm in his creation of poetry, seeking to find his own rhythm to express his deepest thoughts, he used rhythm to deny his own demons: “Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee.”

What Gollum, Hopkins, and I all have in common

…“NOT, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee,”…

It’s weird, but despair is a sort of comfort; it is the easy thing to do. My brother Seth, the family astrologer, told me recently that a Pisces (that’s me!) has to choose each day whether to swim upstream or down. It’s easier, of course, to follow the natural flow of the stream, but fighting against it yields greater rewards. It’s also interesting to note that despair in “Carrion Comfort” is equated with fleshly comfort. Just ask my husband: whenever I decide to give into my own despair, I have a tendency not only to wallow in my own sadness but also to indulge in physical pleasures. If I choose one morning to allow my depression to win the fight, I’ll spend the day sleeping, eating, and taking hot baths. And I’ll be sad. But if I look my depression in the eye and say, “No, I’ll not feast on thee,” and turn upstream, and fight against the current by going to class and going to work and doing my homework and exercising, I feel, if not happy, at least satisfied.

Not untwist—slack they may be – these last strands of man

In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;…

One of the most poignant moments for me in The Lord of the Rings movie series was the end of Gollum’s struggle with his self-deprecating Other Self. He worked up all his strength, looked his dark self in the eye, and bravely said, “Go away. Go. Away. GO. AWAY.” He chose (for a moment) to swim upstream. I identify with that self-struggle. Sometimes when I’ve been forcing my way upstream for a while, I start to feel tired. But I’ve learned that letting go of the fight is not the answer. Great effort can be undone by a single moment in which I choose to feast on despair—a choice that will carry me back down again to the place I had been weeks or months or even years ago. I may be exhausted, but I’ve already made it so far: I’ll have to cross this path again if I let go now. So I have to look forward bravely and say, “I can.” Can what?

Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.

And sometimes when I can’t do much more, this is all I can do: choose to hope, choose to wish, choose to continue breathing even when breathing is painful and I don’t want to anymore. Because if you feast too long on “carrion comfort, Despair,” you will “choose not to be.” And suicide is not the only way this is accomplished: simply dwelling too long in depression, isolating yourself, hiding from life—this is also choosing “not to be.” And perhaps even hiding from your self, from your own unique selfness, is also choosing “not to be.” If you can do nothing else, you can hope. You can look toward the dawn. You can choose to be.

…Hand rather, my heart lo! Lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, cheer

And if you choose to be, sometimes really good things can happen. From Jesus’ darkest nights emerged the greatest hopes and joys of Christendom.

Katy Morrison

Me? Or me that fought him? O which one? Is it each one? That night, that year

Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God

Also at the age of seventeen, I remember spending several gloomy days wandering the halls of my high school. A friend of mine stopped me and asked, “Rach? Is everything all right?” She, like all of my friends, like most of the people I knew, was a Mormon. And so I said, “I’m worried that God doesn’t exist.” And she said, “Is that all? Of course he doesn’t exist. I haven’t believed in God for years.”

“Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? That is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

And hence began my long and ongoing wrestling match with (my God!) my God.

The bloody taste of metal

…But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me

They wring-world right foot rock? Lay a lionlimb against me? Scan

With darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones? And fan

O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?...

And this is where the poem—both Hopkins’ and the poem of my life—grows even thicker. Hopkins turns a frustrated eye toward God and asks, “And why are You making this harder?” Now, I know Hopkins and I differ quite broadly in our opinions about God (he is a firm believer; I am an established wonderer), which means that God factors into our trials differently. But yes, often it seems that I’m lying there with “bruised” bones and God the Terrible, instead of God the Benevolent, often seems to step in. For me that emerges in the form of God-oriented guilt. This guilt fans the embers of my shame and depression. I want nothing more than to avoid God, but that isn’t an option for me—definitely not here at BYU, and really not an option for me anywhere, because God has been bred into my very sense of identity and being and there’s no rooting it out. I’m frantic to avoid God, who seems so much an exacerbator of my problems, but there is no avoiding the darksome devouring eyes. I am like a wounded rodent, watching a raptor swooping in for the kill.

Three Metaphors

Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie; sheer and clear

Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod…

In the book of Matthew, John the Baptist describes the above-mentioned process: "He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

So here Hopkins conjures up the New Testament image of the great harvest in which God will reap that which is good and separate the wheat within ourselves from the chaff. And this process, says Hopkins, is frightening and painful. But the results? Are ultimately for the best.

This is a weird concept to understand, so I’ll use three metaphors to help explain it: The Golden Core/Black Crap Metaphor, The Stained Glass al la Joseph Campbell Metaphor, and The Grainy Grain metaphor.

The Golden Core/Black Crap Metaphor:

The ego is a nasty thing. It covers up our true selves, our best selves, our good selves. My sister explained it to me as being a bunch of black crap, tar or something, that’s been caked on a nugget of pure shiny gold.

The “Black Crap” component consists of fears, expectations, artificiality, and defense mechanisms that need to be scraped off in order to allow the precious metal within to serve its purpose.

The Stained Glass al la Joseph Campbell Metaphor

Mythologist Joseph Campbell spoke about the person as stained glass, a beautiful image made even more beautiful when light illuminates its details. He says that we must allow the light of God to shine through ourselves in order to be truly who we are. We have to dust off our windows and let God in. The words “sheer and clear” in Hopkins’ poem might point towards an idea like that.

The Grainy Grain Metaphor

This final metaphor relates most directly to Hopkins’s choice of language. The word “grain,” which can have two meanings—the cereal product and also the natural arrangement of fibers in wood—seems to be making a connection to Hopkins’ theology in which inscape played an important role.

In traditional grain harvesting practices, a “fan” as mentioned by Hopkins, is used for the process of winnowing, which means the removal of the nasty, unuseful, undesirable parts of the grain (the “chaff”) from the grain. Note that the “chaff” is not always absolutely useless. At first it protects the tender grain, keeping it safe from damaging weather or hungry birds. But there comes a time when the chaff needs to be removed.

Hopkins’s personal theology emphasized inscape and the process in which inscape was discovered, instress. So I suppose in this context, God's working upon Hopkins is not only separating his less-desirable parts from his true self; it is also revealing his natural "grain," the shape of himself, the arrangement, direction, or pattern of his soul.

While in my own life, I don't experience this chaff-separating experience as being necessarily an act of God, I do feel that my struggles with God and my belief systems and the church in general are the fan with which my chaff is being removed from my wheat, and my true colors, my natural and unique grain, and my nourishing and useful grain, is being revealed.

Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear

Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,

Hand rather, my heart lo! Lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, cheer

As Jesus once said, “He who loses his life shall find it.”

Cheers and Jeers: The Great Match

Cheer whom though? The hero whose heaven-handling flung me, foot trod

Me? Or me that fought him? O which one? Is it each one? That night, that year

Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God

“And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved” - Genesis 32:24-32

You know that “fight or flight” response system they teach you about in eighth-grade health class? In my spirituality, the “flight” part of that response is depression, a complete shutting down of self, an absolute choosing of nonexistence, a frantic avoidance of all things painful or difficult. But ultimately, running away isn’t the answer. The “fight” must be fought. Depression must be looked in the eye. Battles must be fought. God must be confronted.

Living Flesh

…Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;…

“The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak," said Jesus. I imagine that Hopkins, particularly as a Catholic, felt this scripture deeply. In fact, when Hopkins became a priest, he reportedly gave up writing poetry for seven years, as a way of overcoming his wordly attachments, until a superior advised him to resume his work. So this poem reflects his attempts to reconcile the worldly with the divine: poetry about spirituality. And this is particularly a poem about Hopkins’ struggle to overcome his human tendency to wallow in the comforts of the flesh. His use of the word “carrion”—rotting flesh—rather than simply “flesh” underscores the nature of human frailties and shortcomings and appetites. It’s also interesting to note that Hopkins, as a Catholic and therefore a believer in the doctrine of transubstantiation, uses here the word “feast” in conjunction with “flesh.”

"And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."

“Then Jesus said unto them, Verily verily I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.”

So the underlying message of this poem is that we cannot feast on rotting flesh and be filled. It will not satisfy. As much as we may dread the cannibalism, as much as we may fear the food, we must feast on the body of Christ. For through eating the Living Flesh, says Hopkins, we will find life.