Hungerfield

Hungerfield and Other Poems by Robinson Jeffers, 115 pages

The title poem centers around the character of Hungerfield, an impetuous brawler and ex-soldier who shares a home with his wife, young son, ailing mother, and brother.  When his mother is on her deathbed, Hungerfield grapples with Death until the reaper flees, but the family soon learns to mourn the act.  This is followed by a poetic dramatic adaptation of Euripides' Hippolytus, retitled The Cretan Woman.  A set of shorter - but not necessarily lesser - poems round out the collection.

Throughout, Jeffers is haunted by death, but the specter is understood and accepted as a part of nature which cannot be evaded without consequences.  Indeed, the author seems to find it easier to accept death than its

     ... sister named Life, an opulent treacherous woman,

     Blonde and a harlot, a great promiser,
          and very cruel too.

His poetry is full of vivid descriptions of nature,

     ... the enormous unhuman beauty of things; rock, sea and stars, fool-proof and permanent,

which Jeffers loves rather more than he loves human beings, though

     Humanity has its lesser beauty, impure and painful; we have to harden our hearts to bear it.

Much of his poetry mocks at man and his illusions of self-importance, his pretence of mastery.  As The Cretan Woman prophetically concludes

     In future days men will become so powerful

     That they seem to control the heavens and the earth,

     They seem to understand the stars and all science -

     Let them beware.  Something is lurking hidden.

     There is always a knife in the flowers.  There is always a lion just beyond the firelight.