Welcome To The Bay
San Francisco Renaissance, found by Kenneth Rexroth, was established during a high arts activity in San Francisco after WWII, and was inspired and based on many different performing arts generations in the past
Breakdown
To know the meaning of this poem, you will need a lot of background knowledge. This includes: the title Orfeo which is the story about Orpheus and Eurydice, and I highly suggest you do some research on that story before reading this analysis. With this outside knowledge, as well as with details in the poem, I guessed that this poem is about incompleteness. It starts off by saying "Sharp as an arrow Orpheus Points his music downward. Hell is there At the bottom of the sea cliff." Orpheus' music was the most calming sound, and was said to calm anything, and in the poem he had it pointed at hell. I believed that the poet was implying that nothing was invincible, until I read the next lines which said "Heal Nothing by this music. Eurydice ". He suggests that nothing really changes, Hell is still Hell, and Eurydice is still gone. He ends the poem by saying
"The lack of anything but the eternal to look at
The expansiveness of salt
The lack of any bed but one’s
Music to sleep in". To me, these lines support the main idea of incompleteness. The lack of anything external to look at implies that he is the only external thing there. The lack of any bed but one's music to sleep in implies that the music(most likely referring to Orpheus,) is his only calming factor. These things represents a void that needs to be filled, so something is always incomplete.
"The lack of anything but the eternal to look at
The expansiveness of salt
The lack of any bed but one’s
Music to sleep in". To me, these lines support the main idea of incompleteness. The lack of anything external to look at implies that he is the only external thing there. The lack of any bed but one's music to sleep in implies that the music(most likely referring to Orpheus,) is his only calming factor. These things represents a void that needs to be filled, so something is always incomplete.