What is intriguing about poetry is its fluidity. It is a genre of writing that has subgenres so vast and so up for interpretation. In “A poetics of planetary water” Steve Mentz states that “The term“poetics” […]functions as a singular concept: a poetics of planetary water aims to clarify the relationships between humans and water in all its forms and phases” (Mentz 139). Using a poetic lens in literature, especially in reference to water, not only deepens our understanding of water in human and planetary life, but it complicates it too. Using Mentz insight, The Sirens portion of The Odyssey water is not just background or a mere setting, it becomes an active force that shapes human fate and meaning.
Water may be material that sustains life but it has throughout time and place carried symbolic and poetic meaning. Homer wrote about Odysseus’ journey through the ocean, and at one point Odysseus encounters Siren seas described as: “Sunk were at once the winds; the air above, / and waves below, at once forgot to move” (Penguin 11). Homer does not simply use the water as a means of transportation or material environment but instead uses it as a metaphorical threshold. The imagery creates a feeling of stillness that is both eery and enchanting. A poetic style, in this case, does what prose cannot; with a poetic style the sea is used to embody human vulnerability and temptation, as it shifts between calm and chaos. Whereas with prose you can use imagery but the rhythm and rhyme that helps support that shifting may get lost.
Beyond the symbolic meaning poetics can help us connect natural phenomena, like water, with cultural meaning. We see in The Odyssey that elements of earth, wind and water, are personified: “Some demon calm’d the air and smooth’d the deep, / hush’d the loud winds, and charm’d the waves to sleep” (Penguin 11). When talking about elements—earth, air, wind, fire—one usually thinks of Science. Something that provides people with all the answers. Yet, this moment in The Odyssey may be scientifically calm, but poetically it is full of imagery of the supernatural and the unexplainable. It has even more personification of the elements which goes against black and white thinking that humans crave so deeply. In this case human imagination transforms water into a source of narrative, intrinsically linking myth and environment together.