Hummingbird by Raymond Carver
by Vanessa
Suppose I say summer,
write the word “hummingbird,”
put it in an envelope,
take it down the hill
to the box. When you open
my letter you will recall
those days and how much,
just how much, I love you.
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Vanessa: I stumbled across Wild & Precious Life while searching the internet for this poem, which is among my favorites. I recognize many of your selections but some are new to me, and I can’t wait to spend some time getting to know them. Thanks for sharing your compilation with the anonymous online masses.
On this transcription of “Hummingbird,” I have a question for your consideration. For me, the most important line of this poem–although perhaps not quite part of the poem, proper, and not quite part of its title–is “For Tess.” Those two words provide the context for all those that follow, without which the poem feels to me to be kind of emotionally one-dimensional: all romance and no sorrow, no grief, no foreboding. Your reading may well differ from mine (one of the characteristics of great poetry is its capacity to be meaningful to different people for different reasons), and so I’m curious to know: What led you to omit “For Tess”?
To be honest….I hadn’t realized that I had omitted anything. Someone sent me that poem; in that form. I just assumed it was the complete piece. I’ll have to look into it.
And thank you for the kind words about the site. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed perusing it.
Best,