Every time the bucks went clatteringYou have to hand it to Stevens to start off his first book with such a poem. "Earthy Anecdote" has no people, no drama, no believable situation, no recognizable form, its main character is wholly imaginary but not explained in any way, almost every word in it is repeated multiple times. It is like a nursery rhyme without the rhyme, or better yet a cartoon, the primitive kind one would see on movie screens in 1923. It makes perfect sense in fact as a cartoon, you can just see that funny firecat bristling and the poor clattering herd of bucks go veering away.
Over Oklahoma
A firecat bristled in the way.
Wherever they went,
They went clattering,
Until they swerved
In a swift, circular line
To the right,
Because of the firecat.
Or until they swerved
In a swift, circular line
To the left,
Because of the firecat.
The bucks clattered.
The firecat went leaping,
To the right, to the left,
And
Bristled in the way.
Later, the firecat closed his bright eyes
And slept.
And just in case you have the idea that this is one big metaphor, Stevens himself wrote, by way of explanation to the editor of the Modern School journal that first published the poem, “there’s no symbolism in the ‘Earthy Anecdote’ (L 204)" ... "I intended something quite concrete: actual animals” (L 209). Except that there’s no such animal as a firecat. And even the biggest predatory cats will quietly stalk a herd of deer, not bristle at them as if they are dogs. Similarly, it’s hard to imagine a clattering of bucks stopping for anything, much less swerving in multiple directions as puppets of an angry feline.
Still readers feel that it makes sense, recognizing the dynamism expressed in it of irresistible force working out some kind of agreement with immovable object, of a social compact between hunter and hunted, of something resembling the human desire to if not control, at least reroute reality through force of will (or as Ryan Wetterling puts it “the cycle of pursuit, evasion, and repose upon the edges of the mind”). Thus this strange firecat has been allegorized as a cougar, lightning, a prairie fire, the sun, God actual or imagined by the bucks, the imagination, the female, Stevens himself, an oil well, a red panda (called a firecat in China), the color yellow – every one of these as symbol has some literal flaw, not the least of which is the scene doesn’t make literal sense in the first place. But then there’s that cartoon logic, which makes perfect sense.
Also bear in mind here that the word "bristle" has three distinct connotations:
- strong, free-flowing movement ("the crowd bristled")
- irritated response ("she bristled at the suggestion")
- a shiny appearance ('the stars bristled")
I for one see in the firecat something of the Sisyphean plight of the individual, seen from the air ("over Oklahoma") and repeated endlessly. It could take the form of the writer redirecting but not capturing reality with his bright eyes and muse-powered will, or the boss with the power to "fire" herding his young bucks off in the right direction but not getting them exactly to follow orders, or the reader who can shape the words coming at him and interpret it left or right but can only end it by inscrutably going to sleep. One sees this dynamic in many human situations, how the negative will of the individual can influence the will of the group, but not in a way that satisfies either side or changes anything. Think of wars, protests, investment, religion, politics, anywhere the unresolved duality of life puts people at odds, there is always someone who can "play the players" to get them to swerve, but it is a limited power the individual has in the social realm, one of influence and not authentic independence.
Perhaps that is part of the key to the mystery why Stevens put this poem first in his introduction to the general public. Or maybe not. “There is a good deal of theory about it, but explanations spoil things,” Stevens wrote of the poem in the 1918 letter (L 204). Anecdote, personal account, from the Greek anekdota (unpublished items), also means “a secret or private, hitherto-unpublished narrative.” So, recognizing that this poem un-"earth"ed may be of something still buried from literal, literary or critical thought (at least mine), I will leave with, apropos of nothing, two interesting Summer anecdotes.
The Legend of the Fire Cat, from Florida Panther Net
In August of every year, according to the tribal legend of the Yakimas and Lummis in the Puget Sound area, a large puma appears as the Great Fire Cat, jumping from the Olympic Mountains to the Selkirks, to Baker, to Rainier, and back to the Olympics, setting fires. It is said that a long time ago a chief of the Lummi Indians on the islands in Puget Sound acquired great wealth and stored it in a huge cave. He captured a large female puma and trained her to live in the cave and guard his treasures. The chief told his two sons that if misfortune should come to them after his death, they should go with fifty men to the cave and tie a fawn at the entrance to lure the big cat out. They then could slay the animal and recover the riches stored inside the cave.
One of the sons grew greedy and gathered fifty warriors with him to steal the wealth. They followed the directions of the chief and killed the puma as it bounded out of the cave. In their greed and haste, they did not realize they killed a kitten of the big female. While rejoicing over the kill, the great guardian cat charged from the depths of the cave and killed the son of the chief with one swipe of her massive paw and then pursued the warriors into the timber, seeking them out one by one until she had killed them all. The beast was so enraged that she clawed the huge tree until the pitch burst into flames and the forests roared with fire. Since then, the great Fire Cat is supposed to return annually in all her fury to fire the mountains in August.
A hunting practice from Stevens' childhood, from Benton News
From June through September, Pennsylvania hunters would often "fire-hunt" deer. Deer would come to streams, rivers, or other bodies of water at night. Hunters would build a fire of yellow pitch pine in the middle of a canoe, and station a man in the stern to steer and one or two others in front to shoot the deer. When the deer or other animals were spotted, the canoe was steered to drift toward them. The deer would raise their heads and stare at the fire. If the deer finally decided to run, it would see its own shadow in the banks and thinking it was a dog or wolf would cry out and jump into the water, giving the hunters another few shots. In this manner, the early hunters could kill one to four in a location and three to ten deer a night.
