Finding Atlantis: Journeys without Destination

One of my former professors at the University of Chicago, Oren Izenberg, once talked about the poetry of ease. We have a tendency in our depiction of poetry to forget poems which highlight a kind of rest, a view of the work which does not force us to act, but lets us remain as we are, content to float forward. Izenberg's point was to flesh out and attempt to defend ease as a genuine aspect of great poetry, and I will leave such a task to him, but the idea of idleness as a boon has remained with me, and I find it in two great meditations on the wayward journey: W.H. Auden's Atlantis and Joni Mitchell's Barangrill.


Atlantis may not seem like a poem with any sense of ease. The reader may be wracked by "gales of abnormal force", and must make a "terrible trek" through the wilds of the island to at last reach the fabled city. Indeed, even the rhyme scheme is not totally in sync - the first line slant rhymes with the fifth, for example - giving the entire poem a shaky quality. The quatrains don't quite fit together. But nonetheless, Auden does not frighten or bewilder us. The journey has a kind of lazy quality, where the reader must ramble from one set of circumstances to another, all the while knowing that he or she may never reach the intended destination.

Indeed we do not. Only a glimpse of Atlantis is seen before we are meant to say "Good-bye now, and put to sea." And in the end we are not blessed by a god of knowledge or salvation, but by the master of the roads, the patron god of travelers. Atlantis, in the end, is not the point, or if it is, it only provides us a moment of peace before we embark again upon the journey. But there is not sense of hopelessness about this poem. Instead there's a breezy quality, as if seeing Atlantis is just one more sight to see, that the dancing with the Thracians or the nights spent with the Corinthian tart play just as large a role in our salvation. The ease, then, of this poem is the ease of letting things take one as they may. We might have to make a terrible trek "through squalid woods and frozen tundras where all are soon lost," but nonetheless we must "stagger onward rejoicing." We may be set on getting to Atlantis, but we are happy enough to enjoy the detours. The end goal of the journey remains, but Auden gently reminds us that a certain perspective of travel - or enlightenment, really - changes the nature of the journey itself.

It seems to me that this kind of idleness exists in Barangrill as well. There are a number of structural similarities - the narration is to the listener, in the second person, and once again we have a ambiguous final destination - and these most likely account for the tonal resonance between the two pieces. The short description of Barangrill I found on wikepedia’s (which we all know to be the world’s most reputable source for information) page on For the Roses was a “sprightly rap which extols the uncomplicated virtues of a roadside truck stop.” It is somewhere on the way, presumably not intrinsic to the journey nor providing some unexpected impact. But the appeal of this truck stop and Mitchell’s passing encounters there carry the weight of the song, the destination in question only called out after at the end of each verse – and never replied to. The closest we get to knowing anything about Barangrill is that it is hopefully on the way to Folly, the presumed final destination. 


Symbolism of the names aside, Barangrill provides another example of the wayward encounters which Auden expounds in Atlantis. Indeed, Barangrill could be a missing stanza from the poem. Mitchell seems to share in Auden's suggestion that a sense of ease about the journey is the only way to move forward. The song is bright and "sprightly" as wikipedia says, though it also feels comfortable, it is a snug song to listen to. Although Mitchell can certainly have an ironic edge, I don't believe that the amiability of Barangrill is meant to ironically mask a darker meaning. It's meant to be an easygoing song - it may very well be the embodiment of easygoing-ness.


I don't mean to suggest that we can take platitudes from these works - something like "it's not the destination, but the journey" or other such nonsense. The point instead is to show how a certain perspective of ease can ultimately help the journey along, or make it broader and stranger than if one headed in a b-line towards one's final destination. Maybe Auden and Mitchell are just telling us to stop and smell the flowers, but that seems a bit reductive to the wild pagan dances of Atlantis or the waitresses talking about zombies of Barangrill.