The Owl King by James Dickey
"The Owl King" is an eight-page poem by James Dickey, structured in three distinct parts. The first section, titled "The Call," presents a father's poignant search for his blind son, utilizing a traditional poetic format with eight-line stanzas and a recurring refrain. Characteristic of Dickey's style, the poem employs enjambment and a heavy anapestic rhythm, creating a musical quality that enhances the emotional depth of the father's longing. The second part shifts perspective to the owl king, who expresses a profound inner vision and a unique connection with the blind boy, portraying a bond that transcends their physical limitations. This segment highlights the owl's ability to perceive "dark burn" within, suggesting an understanding that goes beyond sight.
The final part, "The Blind Child's Story," unfolds as the boy recounts his transformative journey in the forest, where he learns from the owl king and gains insight into navigating darkness. The relationship between the boy and the owl culminates in a moment of connection, evoking themes of enlightenment and faith. The poem concludes with the boy's realization of his identity through his father, hinting at deeper allegorical meanings related to belief and perception. Overall, "The Owl King" intricately weaves themes of loss, connection, and spiritual awakening through rich imagery and evocative language.
On this Page
The Owl King by James Dickey
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1962 (collected in Drowning with Others, 1962)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
The eight-page poem “The Owl King” is arranged in three parts. Part 1, “The Call,” is the father’s hopeful search for his blind son. This one-page section is characteristic of much of Dickey’s poetry in several ways. It is written in eight-line stanzas, for example, with the first line recurring at the end as a refrain in italics. Many of Dickey’s poems, especially the earlier ones, are told in stanzas of five to eight lines, and the refrain is fairly commonly used (examples include “Dover: Believing in Kings,” “The String,” and “On the Hill Below the Lighthouse”). The stanzas are linked by enjambment, although this poem has rather less of that device than usual in Dickey. The unrhymed lines are mostly of eight syllables, with Dickey’s typically heavy anapestic stress heard everywhere. The metrical pattern found most frequently in a Dickey line is an iamb followed by two anapests, and “The Call” offers perfect examples, as in “It whispers like straw in my ear,/ And shakes like a stone under water./ My bones stand on tiptoe inside it. Which part of the sound did I utter?” The alliteration in these lines is not unexpected in a Dickey poem, and the word “stone” is perhaps the commonest word in Dickey’s vocabulary.
The father’s call is answered by the owl king’s song, and the second part of the poem, two pages, is the owl’s story; it is told in one long stanza. The owl king’s vision allows him to see “dark burn/ Greater than sunlight or moonlight,/ For it burn[s] from deep within [him].” He hears, then sees, the blind boy with “His blue eyes shining like mine.” They are immediately companionable, so that the father’s call becomes a “perfect, irrelevant music,” and they sit each night on the owl’s oak bough. The blind boy achieves something of the owl’s vision, with the boy’s eyes “inch by inch going forward/ Through stone dark, burning and picking/ The creatures out one by one.”
In the five-page third part, “The Blind Child’s Story,” the boy describes, in short lines, his journey into the forest and the relationship he achieves with the owl. Perched on the oak bough, the boy “learn[s] from the master of sight! What to do when the sun is dead,/ How to make the great darkness work/ As it wants of itself to work.” The owl weeps when the boy takes him in his arms in the glow of a heavenly light. The boy then walks through “the soul of the wood,” for he can now “see as the owl king sees.” The hints of religious allegory grow thicker at the end as the boy concludes, “Father, I touch! Your face. I have not seen/ My own, but it is yours./ I come, I advance,/ I believe everything, I am here.”
Bibliography
Bruccoli, Matthew J., and Judith S. Baughman, eds. Crux: The Letters of James Dickey. New York: Knopf, 1999.
Calhoun, Richard J., ed. James Dickey: The Expansive Imagination. Deland, Fla.: Everett/Edwards, 1973.
Calhoun, Richard J., and Robert W. Hill. James Dickey. Boston: Twayne, 1983.
Dickey, James. Classes on Modern Poets and the Art of Poetry. Edited by Donald J. Greiner. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004.
Dickey, James, Barbara Reiss, and James Reiss. Self-Interviews. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1970.
Heyen, William. “A Conversation with James Dickey.” Southern Review 9 (1973): 135-156.
Kirschten, Robert. James Dickey and the Gentle Ecstasy of Earth. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988.
Kirschten, Robert, ed. Critical Essays on James Dickey. New York: G. K. Hall, 1994.
Lieberman, Laurence. The Achievement of James Dickey: A Comprehensive Selection of His Poems with a Critical Introduction. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1968.
Van Ness, Gordon. Outbelieving Existence: The Measured Motion of James Dickey. Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1992.