Colloquy in Black Rock (1946). Detailed description

Lowell wrote “Colloquy in Black Rock” while living in Black Rock, Connecticut, completing his parole as a conscientious objector. He was sentenced to “A year and a day,” as he writes in the third stanza, for refusing to take part in World War II, which he considered an immoral war because of the number of civilian deaths resulting from American bombing. He worked there in a Catholic nurses’ dormitory as a janitor. According to Lowell, he had not written anything for a year when he sat down to write “Colloquy.” The poem was written at a point in Lowell’s life when he was struggling with his rejection of the Protestant faith. He had converted to Catholicism, and the poem draws much of its imagery and symbolic content from Catholic tradition. As much of Lowell’s poetry does, “Colloquy” combines his personal experiences with a broader social context of historical and political attitudes.

On one level the poem depicts the town of Black Rock, and its mudflats, Black Mud, both of which are located just south of Bridgeport, Connecticut. It includes mention of the “Hungarian workmen” who composed a large segment of Bridgeport’s population, working at the town’s helicopter factory and attending St. Stephen’s Catholic Church. “Colloquy” goes on to connect the community’s name to its physical characteristics: “Black Mud: a name to conjure with: O mud / For watermelons gutted to the crust, / Mud for the mole-tide harbor, for the mouse, / Mud for the armored Diesel fishing tubs that thud” (11). By repeating the word mud within the string of associational descriptions Lowell consolidates his vocabulary to one main descriptor. He presents a dense image of the town itself concurrent with his experience of it.

More than just the poem’s most prominent image, mud also serves as a unifying symbol that ties together the religious and psychological content. The first four stanzas present a dark vision of the dirty industrial city, where “the jack-hammer jabs into the ocean” and “All discussions / End in the mud-flat detritus of death” (11). Through Lowell’s perception, mud represents the violence of life. In the first and third stanzas that violence tends toward descriptive expression, reflecting on the author’s psyche. The second and fourth stanzas, however, introduce religious imagery by mentioning the martyr Stephen, with a particular focus on death, blood, and, of course, mud.

The final stanza extends the religious content to include another martyr, Jesus Christ. Unlike St. Stephen, Christ does not die in the mud but rather walks on top of “the black water” (11). Here Lowell is alluding to a Bible verse, John 6:19, in which Jesus walks across the turbulent sea to meet the disciples and then calms the waters after they take him into his boat. The kingfisher, fabled to have calming powers over wind and waves, connects Jesus to the transformative act of the last lines. By escaping life’s mud, the bird reasserts the sacrificial image of blood and cleanses the heart with fire.

Trying to tie the poem’s symbolic meanings back into Lowell’s biography presents some difficulties. Can we say that he sees himself as a martyr suffering for his conscientious objection to war? Is “Colloquy” a prayer for redemption from the sins, or mud, of this world? Regardless of what we decide about Lowell’s place in the poem, it presents a sense of hope that many critics refuse to allow the poet. Through his poetry, though, Lowell reveals himself as a complex character, in both hope and despair.

For Discussion or Writing
1. In the first stanza of “Colloquy in Black Rock” Lowell uses the racialized term nigger-brass percussions. The description derives its denotative meaning from derogatory remarks about black music in the first half of the 20th century. Jazz bands in New Orleans, for example, were often called “nigger brass” and regarded by genteel folks as culturally and physically dangerous. What additional meanings does the word assume when used in the context of “Colloquy,” a poem that uses blackness as both a descriptive adjective and a proper noun? What does the poem say, or not say, about race? Expand your discussion by comparing the role of race in “Colloquy” to the role of race in “For the Union Dead.”

2. A colloquy is a formal discussion or a written dialogue and implies the presence of more than one voice. Considering the poem’s structure, syntax, and diction, does anything about “Colloquy in Black Rock” suggest a conversation? How does the claim “All discussions / End in the mud-flat detritus of death” change your understanding of the title’s overall significance to the poem’s meaning?