Who is That Swan I see?

Patricia Puspitasari (47120143)

Swan and Shadow is a poem by John Hollander that beautifies a swan paddling towards the
middle of a pool of water and suddenly out of our sight of vision in the middle of dusk. Using
spacing techniques, Hollander creates an intricate image of a swan on the surface of water with
its reflection beneath it. The swan is represented by lines 1 to 17, water is represented by line 18
and lines 19 to 35 represents the swans shadow. The poem revolves around the theme of
memories (or specific moments in time) and how quickly it fades, hard to maintain and hard to
recollect.
I find it interesting that Hollander uses the word dusk, as it represents the darkest period of the
evening, thus indicating that the second swan (showed in lines 19 to 35) is a shadow of the first
swan. This can also indicate that in truth memories may only be crystal clear in the beginning but
slowly becomes unclear dark and haunting images, Hollander even questions the truth of the
memories we recollect in the line, .bares its image awakening / ripples of recognition that will
/ brush darkness up into light (15-17). However it soon becomes more apparent in the line,
even after this bird this hour both drift by atop the perfect sad instant now / already passing out
of sight (18-19) that these memories would only linger for a while, and like the swan will
eventually fall out of sight and deteriorate from our minds.
The shape of the poem further reiterates the theme as the swan itself represents memories,
whereas the careful appearance of the swan represents the beauty of capturing memories. In the
line Here in this pool of opened eye, (12) the eye literally represents the human eye seeping in
the image of the swan (or memories). But then with line 18, which also represents water, it
shows that these memories suddenly disappear, gets washed away and turned into a mere
shadow. This sudden transition leads readers to lines 19 to 35, where Hollander talks about the
sad reality that at the end of the day memories would only be Out of mind into what / pale /
hush / of a / place / past / sudden dark as / if a swan / sang.