Violence, Innocence and Sorrow in Lobelia's Lament

Twentieth century American poet Louise Bogan is often quoted as saying 'innocence of heart and violence of feeling are necessary in any kind of superior achievement; the arts cannot exist without them’. This was a principle she strongly believed in, and is reflected in her poetry. Many of Bogan’s poems have some autobiographical content, whether the situation recorded was based entirely on her past or simply contained reflections of emotions she has experienced, and the poem ‘Little Lobelia’s Song’ is certainly no exception to this.

The source of ‘Little Lobelia’s Song’ was in what one biographer called ‘the weeping spells of Bogan’s old age’ (Bogan suffered from depression, and hospitalised herself a couple of times during her life) when she was apparently visited by the ghost of her childhood. Bogan herself described the poem as ‘a dual self … in mirror images’. Hence the first stanza:

I was once a part
Of your blood and bone.
Now no longer –
I’m alone, I’m alone.

The phrase ‘was once’ obviously indicates that this bond between the narrator and the addressee of the poem, that went to the extent of sharing ‘blood and bone’, occurred in the past. The dash at the end of the third line indicates structurally the divide between the two; the placement of this hyphen after the words ‘now no longer’ emphasises the fact that this split is the current state of affairs. However, the repetition in the forth line, ‘I’m alone, I’m alone’, reinforces the ideas of duality and echoes (repetitions of past sounds and images), and suggests that some kind of link between the two personas of the poem remains.

This remaining bond is also reflected in the form of the poem. The title clearly indicates that this poem is written in the style of a song, and thus has a simple rhythm and constant rhyme scheme. This creates a ‘harmonious’ effect within the poem – not only ‘harmonious’ musically, so that the words could be fitted to music as a literal song – but also ‘harmonious’ thematically, as the form reflects the bond between the narrator, Little Lobelia, and Bogan, the addressee. This is further emphasised by Bogan’s choice of rhyme scheme: only lines 2 and 4 of each stanza rhyme. This subtly reasserts the idea that there is a bond between the pair (through harmony on even numbered lines), whilst contrasting it with the ‘discord’ of lines 1 and 3 of each stanza, which hint that the bond is fragmented, and over a great distance (in this case, temporal, not spatial).

However, the relationship between Little Lobelia and Bogan is more complex than it first appears, and it is not simply a ‘temporal shift’ that has enabled them to meet face to face. Lobelia’s childish, innocent narrative voice, constructed of short, simple words and almost factual statements (there are many positive, active verbs used in the poem: for example, ‘I know’, ‘I can’, ‘you look’ etc.) and her use of rhyme and simple repetition are contrasted with harsh images and emotions that her words evoke. For instance, her use of the phrase ‘part / of your blood and bone’ creates a more stark and sinister image than if she had instead said ‘part of you’, and there are several references to emotional torment, such as the fear in the words ‘I can’t get back’, and the constant references to crying.

In fact, something almost sinister emerges in their relationship in the third stanza:

Not lost, but abandoned,
Left behind;
This is my hand
Upon your mind.

Here, two issues are raised. First, Bogan’s childhood ghost feels that she was ‘abandoned’ – ‘left behind’ in the past. This makes it sound as if Bogan’s ‘growing up’ was a deliberate act - a case of sacrificing innocence, as far as Lobelia is concerned. This, to some extent, was true for Bogan, who was forced to abandon her youthful romanticism at an early age after the failure of her first marriage when she was aged just nineteen, and face harsh reality. Secondly, there is a hint of bitterness in Little Lobelia’s voice at this sacrifice – a bitterness that almost reaches a desire for revenge in the following lines.

There is something distinctly disturbing in the lines ‘This is my hand / Upon your mind’. Not only does it suggest Little Lobelia has a controlling influence over Bogan – perhaps referring to prevailing ‘childish’ (intense, wild, uncontrollable) emotional urges through her mental illness – but also that Bogan is so vulnerable, even a seemingly harmless ghost child can reach inside her and (potentially) damage what gives her the very essence of ‘selfhood’. It is this threat of jeopardised identity that makes the ghost of Little Lobelia so disturbing.

So, what evidence of Lobelia’s power over Bogan is there in the poem? It would appear at first glance that Lobelia is the one that is powerless, vulnerable and victimised: she has been ‘abandoned’, ‘can barely speak’, and repeatedly weeps. To see the effect of Lobelia on her addressee, we must go back to the original quote I gave from Bogan: 'innocence of heart and violence of feeling are necessary in any kind of superior achievement; the arts cannot exist without them’. For the creation of this poem, both of these things – innocence of heart and violence of feeling – are found within the poet, but within different her personas in the poem. The ‘innocence of heart’ is clearly an aspect of the childish Little Lobelia, whilst this in itself is the provocation of the required ‘violence of feeling’ from Bogan, resulting in the transcription of emotions and illusions in the form of the poem itself. Lobelia’s power over Bogan is her control over Bogan’s artistic progress, and thus, ultimately, her life.

But why is such ‘violence of feeling’ evoked in the addressee by Lobelia’s innocence? This is due to part of their complex relationship: Bogan’s retrospective view of her childhood in light of her later life. Bogan looks upon her childhood ghost, her reflection in the looking glass being ‘the face / [her] likeness has’, and shares Lobelia’s view that Lobelia represents Bogan’s sacrificed innocence. Seeing the mere ghost of her innocence after years of emotional torture both through failed romances and tragic mental illness would obviously have a profound effect on Bogan.

Yet it is not only innocence lost that Bogan recognises in Little Lobelia, but also what they both retain and share: sorrow. The relationship between the pair, though strained by time and experience, is strengthened by their joint sorrow. As Lobelia states; ‘these are my tears / upon your cheek’. Bogan, as poet, represents this in the last two lines of the poem:

Else I weep, weep
Else I cry, cry.

The meaning of both these lines is exactly the same: both depict someone crying. The repetition of each word echoes the duality of the situation; the ‘mirror image’ effect that Bogan described. But the use of two different words that are synonymous, instead of simply using the same word, shows that although the emotion behind their tears is the same – sorrow – it is for different reasons, under different circumstances. Even though they might both be weeping for innocence lost, both mourn this loss in relation to themselves.

‘Little Lobelia’s Song’ is clearly a very emotional and personal poem for Bogan. So why transcribe something so intense in the confined form of a short poem, to later be published for anyone to read? Well, as suggested by other poems by Bogan (I’m specifically thinking of ‘Medusa’, but I’m sure there are others) where speaker and ‘shadow’ (another self both frightening and recognisable) meet eye-to-eye, Bogan considered such encounters crucial to her poetic imagery, and to her perception of the poet-muse relationship. Bogan believed that only by directly facing ‘the beast within’ can the poet come to terms with their own hidden powers: hence Bogan reveals that she would not have had the capacity to write such emotionally-driven poems as ‘Little Lobelia’s Song’ without the ‘violence of feeling’ provided by the dark inner-sorrows of muses like innocent Little Lobelia – the ghost of her younger self.