Francesca Richardson

AP Literature
Mr. Gallagher

Often I am Permitted to Return to a Meadow

Poetry Explication

In Robert Duncan’s poem, “Often I am Permitted to Return to a Meadow” the

author suggests the speakers’ struggle with understanding his own thoughts. Robert
Duncan utilizes imagery of a meadow to characterize a peaceful place.
The first line of the poem also happens to be its title. This works to make the
poem flow faster because there is no pausing after reading the title. You have no time to
predict the poems outcome. Duncan uses the meadow as a metaphor of what is inside of
the mind. In the poem, Duncan explains that meadow as “not mine, but is a made place,
/that is mine” (2-3). By using the structure of breaking the thought and also going against
what was previously said, the reader feels the indecisiveness of the mind. The meadow
Duncan is creating in his poem is a place with no limits, and an escape from the pressures
everyone goes through. Throughout his poem, Duncan breaks his complete thoughts into
different lines, and sometimes even stanzas. He continues one thought through two
stanzas like, “so that there is a hall therein// that is a made place, created by light/
wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall” (5-7). By using this technique, Duncan is
able to put the reader in a state in which thoughts are always floating changing, like in the
mind.
Duncan also creates alliteration in many lines of his poem. In the first stanza,
Duncan alliterates on the letter “m.” In doing this, Duncan is creating the connection
between the “meadow” and the “mine”d. Duncan also uses alliteration of the letter “f” in
the 3rd and 4th stanzas where he writes, “the shadows that are forms fall.// wherefrom fall
all architecture I am/ I say are likenesses of the First Beloved/ whose flowers are flames.”
By doing this, Duncan is creating rhythm for his poem to flow, which makes it more
understandable for a reader.
 In the first 3 stanzas of the poem Duncan also creates an image for “the meadow”
that makes the reader to believe this is a place one would want to be. Duncan recalls the
meadow “an eternal pasture folded in all thought” (line 4). By using the word pasture and
eternal together, the meadow now has a more religious connotation to it. He goes on to
explain how it is a “made place” that is “created by light” (line 6). Being a “made place”
the meadow is not something everyone can have access to. And being “created by light”
the meadow is also a place with safety and happiness. There may be “shadows” here, but
they are no danger because they “fall” (line 7). The meadow is in direct correlation with
the mind. They are escapes from reality, in which each of us has access to our own and
no one else’s.
In the next stanza, Duncan creates a biblical reference to Adam and Eve, the two
first humans ever created by God. He compares humans and architectures to “the First
Beloved” (line 9) who is referring to Adam and “the Lady” being Eve. In the tale of
Adam and Eve, Eve is corrupted by the Devil and her husband is taken with her.
Duncan’s purpose of using this story in his poem was to show that everyone’s mind can
have a dark side. This is the struggle the speaker is faced with throughout the poem; his
own thoughts. People are always going to be faced with “shadows” and “light” in their
mind. The next stanza still refers to Eve. “Queen Under The Hill” is how Eve was the
only woman at this point in time living in the Garden of Eve. However, she was “Under”
it because her choices were not good and pure like those of the garden, or “the meadow.”
The “disturbance of words within words” is the dark choice Eve chose. The “field
folded” is what happened after Eve made this wrong decision. The beautiful meadow was
now full of shadows and dangers. Just like the mind is when someone begins to think
impure and distrustful thoughts.
Now Duncan begins to refer to the meadow as “a dream of the grass blowing/ east
against the source of the sun” (lines 14-15). The dream Duncan is revealing is how the
mind is not always like “a meadow.” It is sometimes corrupted with thoughts and ideas
that would not be characterized with light. The line, “Often I am permitted to return to a
meadow” is again placed in the poem, but this time it is not followed by beautiful
imagery of the field. Instead it is seen as a “property of the mind.” That no matter how
much you wish you could escape it, those thoughts are yours. Duncan juxtaposes the line
from the second stanza that read “an eternal pasture” by now calling the meadow an
“everlasting omen.” Duncan is expressing how a person’s mind is not always what they
themselves even want it to be. Sometimes, they are forced into having thoughts that are
not always happy ones. But this is reality, not “a meadow.”