The Power Room By Clayton Eshleman - 1157 Words

Clayton Eshleman’s poem, â€Å"The Power Room†, in his book, Juniper Fuse, is a walking poem travelling in and out of nature, and in and out of the mind, suspending itself in a moment (a moment Eshleman discusses within the introduction of Juniper Fuse) of elevated consciousness or the act of becoming more self-conscious (xvii). The poem begins with acknowledging the â€Å"spiritum† of the path. This is a reference made to the spirits of those whom inhabited the land prior to the speaker’s arrival. In Gary Snyder’s essay, â€Å"The Place, The Region, And The Commons†, he wrote, â€Å"The sum of a field’s forces becomes what we call very loosely the â€Å"spirit of the place† (38). In Eshleman’s poem, these â€Å"forces† include, the sum of â€Å"the rockface† and the†¦show more content†¦This image of a hybrid saturates the walls of the Cro-Magnon caves, an image that would inevitably reveal its se lf in Eshleman’s poetry. The hybrid imagery within Eshleman’s poem is a representation of the bizarre and distorted image. Eshleman, when discussing Rimbaud’s, â€Å"I is another† within his book, Archaic Design, states, â€Å"whoever wants to be an artist, in Rimbaud’s formula, must make material in his subconscious available to his consciousness, and let the consciousness become distorted and bizarre with this new material† (48). The introduction of the images in the caves to Eshleman’s subconscious allows access for his conscious to create with the distorted bizarreness seen in the creation of â€Å"Wrights corpse† and â€Å"Wright’s warm liver.† Kenneth Warren makes the claim that Eshleman’s, â€Å"engagement†¦ generates an underworld poetics that activates conscious understanding†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (176). It is through his physical interactions with the caves that Eshleman gains his conscious in conne ction with the â€Å"spiritum† and produces the poetic language of Juniper Fuse. After a highly descriptive perspective of a swarm of flies, algae, and bees, the speaker mentions the scent of sewage in the nearby river. The application of this sensory imagery draws the reader deeper into the poem where we then enter into the power room. In here, it is the exhibition space, which Eshleman tells us, he favors and where he would often, â€Å"observe and write† (261). In his book, Archaic Design, Eshleman writes,